KCR Govt to allocate Rs. 12,000 cr for crop investment support

The Telangana government will allocate Rs. 12,000 crores for the farmers in the agriculture budget under the farmers investment support scheme (FISS).

Under the scheme every farmer will get Rs. 4,000 per acre from the Kharif season and the samilar amount would be paid in November for the Yasangi season

Addressing the Rythu Samanvaya Samiti conference at Rajendranagar Jayashankar Agriculture university here, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao said, "The scheme is being appreciated by many including Chief Economic Advisor to the union government Arvind Subramanian as it the scheme is first of its kind in the country."

"Agriculture is a way of life and it cannot be considered as a commercial activity. The years of distress and despair triggered suicides due to years of neglect and discrimination by successive governments in the undivided State," he added.

He also said that there were some misconceptions among some politicians about the FISS scheme.

"Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh thought that the crop investment assistance was to be repaid by the beneficiary and when it was clarified that it was non-recoverable assistance intended to bail out farmers of their financial positions, they were surprised on it," he said.

The investment assistance would be given through bearer cheques for Kharif and Yasangi and the farmers would be given pre-loaded bank cards.

The Chief Minister explained that the crop investment assistance would benefit 1.42 crore farmers in the State covering an area of over 1.62 crore acre of agriculture land.