Way cleared for scheme

​Hyderabad: Telangana State government has initiated measures to launch the Crop Investment Support scheme meant for farmers in the third week of April. Accordingly, the government on Wednesday accorded administrative sanction for Rs 6,000 crore required for the implementation of the scheme.

Under the programme, state government has allocated Rs 12,000 crore in the 2018-19 budget outlay presented by state Finance Minister E Rajender recently. The scheme will help farmers get financial assistance at the beginning of the agricultural seasons. Rs 4,000 will be given per acre to every farmer.

State Finance department has issued orders for the administrative sanction of funds required under the first phase of the scheme ahead of kharif which begins in June first week. The implementing agency of the scheme -State Agriculture Department will take necessary action in executing the programme.

Officials said that government is planning to go in for borrowings for the required funds. The officials of the department have already forwarded a letter to the RBI seeking early release of funds through market bonds. The state is entitled to avail nearly Rs. 25,000 crore in the new financial year.

India’s leading public-sector bank - SBI - has been entrusted to prepare the cheques to be distributed in the name of every beneficiary in every village. “The ownership of lands by the farmers has been finalised in the recently conducted land records purification programme.

The Agriculture Department in coordination with Revenue Department was preparing the list of beneficiaries and the same will be forwarded to the SBI for cheque distribution,” an official in the Finance Department said.