Even as Telangana braces for early Assembly polls, the Agriculture Department is getting ready for the second tranche of Rythu Bandhu disbursals from November 17.

The scheme, introduced in the Kharif season, offers financial assistance to the tune of ₹4,000 an acre to all the land-owning farmers in the State. About 57.15 lakh farmers in 10,874 villages spread in 568 mandals have been declared eligible for the scheme.

The government had allocated ₹12,000 crore in the State Budget for 2018-19, about ₹6,000 cr each for the two seasons.

Interestingly, the disbursals will happen just ahead of the polls, likely to be scheduled for November or December. “Since Rythu Bandhu is an ongoing scheme, we don’t see any hurdle (in the form of election code) in the disbursals,” an officer has said.

Though the total cropped area in the Rabi season is about 13 lakh hectares as against 43 lakh ha in the Kharif season, the State government, in all likelihood, will provide financial help to all farmers, going by the allocations made to the scheme.

The State has been divided into 2,245 clusters in 30 districts (excluding Hyderabad) to make it easy for officials to disburse the cheques under the Agriculture Investment Support Scheme.

A Cabinet-Sub-Committee headed by Pocharam Srinivas Reddy had recommended that the assistance should be given in the form cheques and not through electronic deposit in the accounts of farmers.

While the State Bank of India has been entrusted with the cheque disbursals in 251 mandals, Andhra Bank would take care of 130 mandals, followed by other national banks such as Syndicate Bank, Corporation and Canara Bank for other mandals.

The scheme, however, doesn’t cover tenant farmers, who constitute about one-fourth of the farming community.

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