Govt sanctions Rs 1,662 crore Nilam-drought relief to ryots

Payment to be made within 90 days from the date of releaseA

Hyderabad: The State government decided to distribute Nilam and drought relief package amount as input subsidy to the farmers of 605 mandals in the State within 90 days.A The government has issued orders on it, on Wednesday, sanctioning Rs 1,662 crore and will distribute it to the farmers during Rythu Chaitanya Sadassulu beginning from May 9.

Nilam cyclone, in 2012, damaged crops in 371 mandals of nine districts. Agriculture crops worth Rs 428 crore and horticulture crops worth Rs 35 crore have been damaged in the cyclone. Likewise, crops in 234 mandals of six districts got dried due to drought in 2012. The loss of agriculture and horticulture crops is estimated to be around Rs 1185 crore and Rs 13 crore respectively.

The government observed that ryots of the State were suffering heavily, due to recurring droughts and cyclones for the past 3-4 years and felt that there was an urgent need to sanction of the above amounts before the onset of monsoon, so as to enable them to purchase agriculture inputs seeds and fertilisers. The government decided that only online releases of input subsidy and relief assistance would be made for the beneficiaries.

The government asked the officials to make the payment of input subsidy to the bank accounts of farmers directly, which should be Aadhaar linked, as far as possible. Payments would be made within a period of 90 days from the date of release of funds. Every farmer will be entitled for input subsidy only for one disaster for the same agricultural season.

The farmers of Anantapur, Kurnool, Nalgonda, Chittoor, YSR Kadapa and Mahbubnagar districts would get the input subsidy under drought provisions. A The Nilam relief funds would be released from the balance funds under State Disaster and Relief Fund subject to reimburse the amount by Central government.