The Telangana government has launched the 10th phase of Rythu Bandhu (acronym for ‘Friend of the Farmer’) scheme, which the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has promised to replicate all over the country to save farmers from debt. Under this phase, Rs 7,676 crore will be deposited in the bank accounts of nearly 70 lakh farmers towards investment support for the Yasangi (rabi) season.
The scheme aims at providing timely cash to farmers for their investment requirements, and to ensure they don’t get trapped in debt.
According to the Tata Institute of Social Sciences report on a beneficiary survey in 2019, the scheme provided full cash transfer to 78% of landowner farmers for both seasons. The remaining 22% either did not receive the cash or got financial transfer partially in one of the seasons.
Let’s look at the key features of the scheme:
1. Through Rythu Bandhu, the government provides support by way of grant of Rs 5,000 per acre to each farmer for every crop season (Rs 10,000 in one year) to buy seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, labour and other investments in the field operations of farmer’s choice for the crop season.
2. Before launching the scheme in 2018, the Telangana government purified and updated land records in the state through the Land Records Updation Programme. This data forms the basis of implementing this scheme.
3. In this phase, Rs 7,676.61 crore will be credited to the bank accounts of 70.54 lakh farmers covering 1.53 crore acres before Sankranthi.
4. State’s finance minister T. Harish Rao said on the first day of the scheme, Rs 607.32 crore was deposited in the accounts of 21,02,822 farmers holding up to one acre of land.
5. In July this year, the government had informed that it had released Rs 58,102 crore under this scheme.
6. The Telangana government had said it started the scheme to boost farm productivity and also break the vicious cycle of rural indebtedness.
With its newly-minted ‘Ab Ki Baar, Kisan Sarkar’ tagline, the BRS aims to project itself as a farmer-friendly party as it takes baby steps into national politics.
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