Rythu Bandhu goes online

Hyderabad: Now, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's flagship Rythu Bandhu scheme goes online. From now onwards, the Telangana government will stop cheque distribution and introduce online payments. The government provides Rs 10,000 per acre as cash incentive to farmers every year.

The decision to the introduce online payments has been taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao with the top officials of Agriculture and Finance departments recently. The officials explained to the chief minister the hurdles the official machinery faced at ground level in distribution of cheques to farmers and the laborious process involved in the preparation and disbursement of cheques from the state head quarter to the village level.

Top officials told The Hans India that the online payments made during the Assembly elections in Telangana in November last had brought a big relief to the state government as the requirement of official staff is minimal in implementing the scheme and the reach of the benefits to the deserved is instant.

In view of the enforcement of Model Code of conduct during election, the Election Commission asked the TS government to stop cheque distribution and instructed the Agriculture department to disburse the scheme benefit to the farmers accounts directly through online without any publicity.

The other advantages in introducing online payment of the scheme is it will help in curbing the middlemen and intervention by local leaders and also put an end to the delay in the clearances of cheques by the local bank branches. The department had received several complaints from the farmers on the realisation of the cheques in a stipulated one-day time, officials said that on the instruction of the chief minister, necessary arrangements are already taken for the online payments from May last week.

In view of fund crunch, the scheme benefit will be disbursed in a phased manner. As promised by KCR in the just-concluded assembly elections, the cash incentive has been increased to Rs 10,000 from Rs 8,000 from this year. The total requirement of fund for the implementation of the scheme in 2019-20 financial year will be Rs 15,000 crore. Last year, the government earmarked Rs 12,000 crore.

The first instalment of Rs 5,000 per acre will be given to the farmers before the beginning of the kharif season in June and the second instalment will be disbursed in November before rabi season. Nearly 50 lakh farmers are being benefited under the scheme.