The pro-farmer schemes of both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments are said to be suffering from severe financial crunch, as the Centre has refused to provide any funds to the states to implement the schemes.
The Telangana government’s much publicised Rythu Bandhu scheme of providing Rs 10,000 per acre per year to each of 58 lakh farmers is understood to have hit the road block due to lack of finances.
Though it is nearly two months since the Kharif season has started, more than 40% of farmers are yet to get the money this year.
The scheme needed Rs 6,900 crore this Kharif, but the finance department is sitting on the bill of Rs 3,400 crore of this scheme and as a result, 23,75,000 farmers are still waiting for the government assistance.
Sources said chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has asked the officials to put forth a request with the Centre to direct the Reserve Bank of India to give some leverage to meet the expenditure on Rythu Bandhu scheme.
It is learnt the KCR government also gave the oral instructions to Tahsildars not to update the land records in such a way that the number of beneficiaries could be cut down.
In Andhra Pradesh, too, the Jagan government is facing the financial crunch to implement the YSR Rythu Bharosa scheme, under which it had promised to extend financial support of Rs 12,500 per year to each farmer.
Now, the officials are saying for the next crop season, only Rs 6,500 would be paid to each farmer in October on the pretext that the season is coming to an end.
The YSRC government also made a request with the Centre to extend financial assistance for Rythu Bharosa scheme, but the Centre flatly rejected the same.
It told the Parliament on Tuesday that the Centre had its own scheme -- Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana, which gives Rs 6,000 per annum for the farmers. Several states have also implemented similar schemes with their own funds, it said.
