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The Andhra Pradesh Government today presented a Rs 13,110-crore budget for the agriculture and allied sectors to provide special thrust for the development of the sector passing through tough times.
While the plan allocation for the sector is Rs 6736 crore, the non-plan outlay is Rs 6374 crore.
Presenting the first ever agriculture budget in the State Assembly today, P Pulla Rao, Agriculture Minister said the agriculture needs special thrust and the separate budget is aimed at providing focus on this sector.
He said the banking sector will provide credit worth Rs 56,019 crore to the agriculture and allied sectors and the State expects to achieve a foodgrain target of 127 lakh mt during the current fiscal.
The Government plans to integrate all the departments of agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, irrigation, sericulture, fisheries, marketing and rural development for raising farmers' income and to increase the share of primary sector in the Gross State Domestic Product.
Mentioning that the AP Government has inherited crisis ridden agriculture sector, he said the share of agriculture and allied sector in GSDP at constant prices during 2003-04 was 54.53 per cent and it has come down to 49.28 per cent during 2012-13.
Referring to the difficulties faced by the farmers, the Minister quoted Nobel laureate and renowned agriculture scientist Norman Borlaug, who had said “Everything else can wait, Agriculture Can’t”.
On the loan waiver scheme taken up by the State Government, he said Rs 5000 crore has been set apart for the purpose and the balance money required would be mobilised based on actual requirement.
Stating that the power sector plays a crucial role in the output in the agriculture sector, he said the Government proposes to extend seven hours of power supply to the farm sector per day with a plan to increase this to 9 hours in a phased manner. The State has over 14.54 lakh farm sector pump sets.
The Government has allotted Rs 3188 crore towards free power supply to the farmers in the budget. In order to strengthen the farm sector output, it is proposed to replace 36,000 non—ISI pump sets during the current year.
The State has targeted to install 10,000 solar pump-sets every year for the next five years as this move would enable discoms to provide power supply to the farm sector during the day time.
Linking the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to the agriculture sector, the State plans to deploy Rs 1386 crore to provide employment opportunities in the agriculture sector during the financial year.
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