Hyderabad: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has emulated Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s Rythu Bandhu scheme by deciding to implement it nationwide with some changes.
Union minister Piyush Goyal, who was standing in for ailing Union minister Arun Jaitley, on Friday announced the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, which envisages payment of Rs 6,000 in three installments of Rs 2,000 each directly to bank accounts of farmers who hold less than two hectares of land across the country.
The NDA scheme will be restricted to small and marginal farmers with land holdings not exceeding five acres, while Rythu Bandhu assistance of Rs 5,000 per acre per season is provided across the board to all farmers in the state irrespective of their land holdings.
Mr Rao launched the Rythu Bandhu scheme during the last Kharif season and had announced during the recent polls that the assistance would be increased from Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 per acre per season, working out to Rs 10,000 per year from 2019-20.
Reacting to the Centre’s new scheme, TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao said he was glad that farmers of India were going to be helped by Rythu Bandhu scheme, brainchild of Chief Minister Mr K. Chandrasekhar Rao. “The NDA government may have changed the name, but in spirit it remains a trimmed version of Rythu Bandhu.”
TRS MP K. Kavitha reacted saying the NDA government had introduced a bad copy of KCR’s Rythu Bandhu scheme. Expressing happiness that somehow farmers will benefit across the country, she said, “Telangana gives every farmer Rs 5,000 per acre twice a year, but the Centre proposes to give Rs 6,000 in three installments. Although it needs refinement, it is a welcome move by the NDA government.”
