AP Govt. Presents First Separate Agriculture Budget In Assembly

13 March, Hyderabad

Andhra Pradesh Agriculture Minister Prattipati Pulla Rao Friday presented the State’s maiden full-fledged agriculture budget for 2015-16 with an outlay of Rs 14,184.03 crore. The plan and non-plan expenditure are estimated at Rs 4.513 crore and Rs 9,670 crore respectively.

Presenting the Separate Agriculture Budget , the Agriculture Minister said the government is determined to make agriculture and allied sectors profitable, despite revenue deficit post State bifurcation coupled with Hud-Hud cyclone that caused extensive damage to the State.

The minister announced a slew of measures to provide impetus to agriculture sector. Proposing Rs 5,000 crore to crop loan waiver, the minister said the crop loans of 42.16 lakh farmers will be waived and Rs 10,000 per acre will be provided to horticulture farmers during next financial year.

He said, ex-gratia to the families of the farmers who committed suicides, is increased to Rs 5 lakh. Assuring 7-hour quality power supply to agriculture sector, the budget allocated Rs 3,000 crore for power subsidy to the farmers.

Meanwhile, the opposition parties termed the budget as vision less. Opposition leader Y.S.Jaganmohan Reddy said, it was a bundle of lies and the allocations for cop loan waiver was not even sufficient to pay bank interest on the loans. Andhra Pradesh PCC President Raghuveera Reddy commented that, the budget was not in line with the interest of people.