Rythu Bandhu disbursal from today

Hyderabad: Beginning Monday, distribution of financial assistance to farmers under the Rythu Bandhu scheme will begin across the State. At Rs 5,000 per acre, the State government will distribute Rs 7,515 crore towards 1.52 crore acres of agricultural land belonging to 61.49 lakh farmers for the Yasangi season this year. The number of farmers benefiting from the scheme increased by 3.87 lakh from the 57.62 lakh farmers last Yasangi season.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, who reviewed implementation of the Rythu Bandhu scheme at Pragathi Bhavan here on Sunday, directed the officials to deposit the amount directly into the bank accounts of all farmers in the State. He placed the onus of distributing the financial assistance to all the farmers on Agriculture department officials who will oversee implementation of the scheme twice every year.

The officials have already made arrangements to complete the distribution process before Sankranthi festival. District collectors and agriculture department officials as well as banks have been instructed to ensure that farmers withdraw the amounts released under Rythu Bandhu scheme from their bank accounts in strict adherence with Covid-19 norms.

Farmers who are unable to visit their bank branches can also withdraw the Rythu Bandhu amount from micro ATMs available at 4,860 post offices located in rural areas. Through these micro ATMs, a maximum amount of Rs 10,000 can be withdrawn per day. The farmer can visit the nearest post office with his/her Aadhaar card linked to their mobile phone number and also their bank account. They can withdraw cash through biometric and giving the OTP received on their registered mobile numbers to the post office.

Meanwhile, participants including top ranking officials at a high level meeting with the Chief Minister advocated putting an end to the State government setting up procurement centres across the State to purchase farm produce from next year. Another opinion that emerged from the meeting was to do away with regulated farming policy, and leave



it to the farmers to decide on the crops that they should cultivate and sell the produce in places where it commands high price.

The meeting extensively discussed purchase of various crops, regulated farming policy, sale and purchase of agriculture produce in the markets, responsibilities of Rythu Bandhu Samithies, utilisation of Rythu Vedikas, ensuring availability of required seed and fertilisers, transfer of required technological knowledge to farmers and other related issues.

Further, the new farm laws being implemented by the Centre allowed farmers to sell their crop anywhere in the country and hence, there will be no need to set up purchase centres in villages, the officials pointed out and said that instead, sale and purchase at Agriculture Markets will be facilitated properly. 

Rather than bringing their produce to the markets at once, farmers would be advised to bring them in a phased manner. It was suggested that Rythu Bandhu Samithis, Market Committees, and AEOs should work in coordination and decide which village should send its produce to the market on a given day. “Tokens should be issued accordingly. It will be convenient for farmers to get their produce on the appointed day. This policy must be implemented strictly,” the participants at the review meeting unanimously stated.

Meanwhile, the Centre also had released Rs 700 crore under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) and the amounts were deposited into the accounts of about 35 lakh farmers in the State. Around 39.17 lakh eligible farmers whose details were uploaded into the PM-Kisan website, and 37.42 lakh farmers received the financial benefit of Rs 2,000 in the first instalment in April-July. 

However, only 36.76 farmers received the benefit in the second installment released in August-November, while around 35 lakh farmers received Rs 2,000 in their bank accounts in the third and last installment released for the current financial year of 2020-21.