CM: Separate Budget, high allocation for agri sector

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday said the state government would present a special budget for agriculture from the coming financial year.

Agriculture had been part of State Budget all these years.

Mr Rao said the agriculture budget would have higher allocations for ‘investment support scheme’ under which the government would extend `8,000 per acre annually as financial assistance to farmers and corpus fund to ensure minimum support price to farmers for all crops.

The CM held a comprehensive review meeting on agriculture issues at Pragati Bhavan with ministers and senior officials.

He said the government would take all steps to ensure MSP (minimum support price) for agriculture produce and support farmers in all aspects.

He instructed officials to take measures to enable the government purchase produce in case if it was not fetching the MSP in the market.

The state government had initiated several measures to make agriculture profitable.

Listing them out, he said irrigation projects were under construction, minor irrigation tanks being revived, 24-hour quality and free supply of power to the farm sector, quality seed and fertilisers availability on time, `8,000 per acre for two crops a year under investment support scheme from this year, one agriculture extension officer for every 5,000 acres, strengthening of the Agriculture University and clarity on land ownership through updation of land records.

Along with these, necessary action would also be taken to get the MSP for agriculture produce, the CM said.

“If farmers are happy, the state would be happy. If the farm sector is good, rural economy would be good. Hence we will take all measures to get the MSP for every crop the farmer produces,” he added.