The Andhra Pradesh Government has made arrangement for the payment of first tranche of loan reschedule to the farm sector in the State with the commissioning of the Farmers' Empowerment Corporation.
The Corporation will be formally inaugurated on Tuesday at Vijayawada with a corpus of Rs 5,000 crore. This will then make arrangement to payback first tranche of 20 per cent of loan reschedule amount of all the eligible farmers, N.Chandrababu Naidu, State Chief Minister, said here today.
Addressing a media conference, he said all the eligible farmers with loans up to Rs 1.5 lakh will be covered by the Corporation, which will serve as a single point interface to strengthen the farm sector in the State.
Once the first tranche is paid to the farmers, the necessary certificates for the remaining amount to be paid over the next four tranches along with interest rate of 10 per cent will be provided to the farmers, he said.
“After addressing the farmers issues with the bankers, we will take care the problems faced by the women self help groups,” he said.
Hudhud Cyclone
The Government expects to complete the relief and rehabilitation works within next two days in tall the ravaged parts of three districts of the State.
He said that it has been eight days and a massive relief and rehabilitation effort has been now underway. The focus now is on instilling confidence on the people affected by the cyclone. Corporate houses are being encouraged to develop group housing for people affected by cyclone.
The extent of damage is currently being assessed and the preliminary estimates would be ready within couple of days. More than 1.7 lakh hectares of agriculture and 72,000 acres of horticulture crops have been damaged. A Blue Book on cyclones would be prepared with the help of experts to facilitate better management of cyclones, he said.
The focus now is on mobilising additional funds through mining of sand, barytes and other resources. The Government is also expecting to secure final nod from the Government of India for sale of Red sanders wood. All these are expected to help mobile additional resources, he said.
Referring to the mishap at the fire cracker manufacturing unit in East Godavari district of the State where 11 people are feared dead and seven other injured, he said the focus is on ensuring that such incidents do not recur and also punishing the guilty.