Eyeing better monsoon, Telangana government raises crop estimate

Hyderabad: Despite a dry spell in June, the state government has come up with an agriculture action plan for the year that raises the target for sowing crops with a hope that the monsoon will revive soon.

The crop sown area target for 2018-19 has been put at 61.24 lakh hectares against 57.25 lakh hectares last year. The target set for kharif was 45.63 lakh hectares and rabi 15.61 lakh hectares.

Agriculture minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, who released the action plan on Wednesday, said the government had kept ready seeds and fertilisers required for the purpose in all the districts, and there would be no shortage.

Last year (2017-18), the kharif target was 43.58 lakh hectares and rabi 13.67 lakh hectares, totalling 57.25 lakh hectares.

The allotment of fertilisers has been increased from 28.2 lakh metric tonnes last year to 32.26 lakh metric tonnes.

The government has increased funds for supply of subsidised seeds to farmers, from '138 crore last year to '178 crore now.

The government has siginificantly increased funds for farm mechanisation to help farmers to achieve good productivity with lower labour costs. In 2017-18, Rs 470 crore was sanctioned for farm mechanisation, which has now been increased to Rs 733.2 crore.

The seed production target through the agriculture department was increased to 1,467 hectares against 667.8 hectares last year.

Funds for the pavala vaddi (25 paise interest) scheme and interest-free loans was increased from Rs 343.37 crore to Rs 500 crore ths year.

The government has sanctioned Rs 6 crore to supply tablet computers to all agriculture extension officers to record details of crop sown area and type of crops sown.