The World Bank has approved a Rs 450-crore loan to the new state of Telangana to improve incomes and address healthcare needs of farmers. The project, Telangana Rural Inclusive Growth Project, will focus on small and marginal farmers, especially from the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes.
The project targets to increase incomes of 2.5 lakh farmers by 50 per cent by improving farm productivity and providing access to the markets.
One-stop-shops, equipped with relevant technologies, will be set up in various panchayats in 150 most backward mandals where the project is proposed to be implemented. These facilities will act as single point delivery for various services and inputs.
Part of the funds would go into building an Open Data architecture to help the State government to vet the data and analyse the results of the project on various parameters.
Besides, the project would also focus on addressing the nutrition and sanitation needs in the rural areas.
“It involves strengthening of extension services, quality inputs and market services. Part of the project also aims at strengthening the planning capacity of all panchayats in these 150 mandals,” a Government official told BusinessLine on the sanction of the loan.
The mandate of the project also included to improve the institutional credit flow to the farmers in the region that faced severe shortage of credit. Absence of public credit forced the farmers to depend on the private lenders who charged interest rates as high as 36-48 per cent.
As a result, the farmers had ended up in huge debt in the just concluded kharif season. Going by the reports reaching here, there is significant change in the rabi season too.
“This project for the newly created state of Telangana will help small and marginal farmers increase their incomes and their access to better services. Creating such strong institutions will go a long way in improving the lives of small and marginal farmers,” Onno Ruhl, Country Director of World Bank in India, said on the project.