To give the ailing agricultural sector a boost, the Chandrababu Naidu Government has proposed a novel campaign called Polam Pilustondi (the field is calling), making officials of the Agricultural Department, agricultural scientists and people’s representatives to hit the fields to understand the problems being faced by farmers and solve them there and then itself.
The exclusive full-fledged budget for Agriculture and Allied Sectors for 2024-25 was presented with an outlay of ₹43,402 crore in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly at Amaravati on Monday. Kinjarapu Acchannayudu, Andhra Pradesh Minister for Agriculture, Marketing and Cooperation, said that the State Government proposes a multi-pronged approach to make agriculture a profitable venture.
Major allocations
The Agricultural Budget has proposed to spend ₹4,500 crore to launch the financial assistance scheme, Annadata Sukheebhava, that seeks to provide ₹20,000 for every farmer for every acre they own. This amount includes ₹6,000 being provided by the Central scheme PM-Kisan. This is one of the Super Six schemes announced by the TDP-Jana Sena-BJP alliance during the election campaign.
The other key allocations include: ₹14,637 crore for maintenance of irrigation projects; ₹7,241 crore for the free power scheme; ₹1,023 crore for the crop insurance scheme; and ₹5,150 cr for NREGA-related works
To be taken up four months each during kharif and rabi seasons, the ‘Polam Pilustondi’ campaign would have the officials and scientists visiting the fields two days in a week to assess, understand, and solve the problems. Those problems that cannot be solved immediately will be escalated to higher officials.
The Government also proposed to develop an app that captures various pests and diseases that were notified to the visiting officials during the campaign. The app, with the help of scientists, would come out with solutions to address the challenges.
He said the Government would focus on natural farming while introducing drone-based services in all the villages and AI/ML-based solutions. It also proposed to offer a Government-backed crop insurance scheme.
Natural farming
Andhra Pradesh, which leads in natural farming, has decided to further invest in this space. “We are going to spend ₹423 crore on developing a natural farming ecosystem. We propose to increase the area under natural farming to 6.64 lakh hectares from the present level of 4.86 lakh hectares. In this process, the number of people practicing natural farming would go up to 13 lakhs from the present level of 10.30 lakhs,” the Minister said.
“In a timeframe of three years, we will cover all the villages with drone services. These will be supported by 875 service centres, covering various parts of the State. We propose to allocate ₹87.50 crore for this purpose,” he said.
Soil health cards
Blaming the erstwhile YSRCP Government for neglecting soil testing, the Minister said the Government would spend ₹39 crore to collect and test 4.50 lakh soil samples from different parts of the State. “We will assign Soil Health Cards based on the sample testing and provide inputs like fertilisers and micronutrients based on the soil health,” he said.