₹3,500 cr set aside for loan waiver in AP’s agri budget

Andhra Pradesh has allotted ₹3,500 crore for the farm loan waiver scheme and ₹3,000 crore towards power subsidy for 2016-17.

Presenting the exclusive budget for agriculture in the Assembly here on Thursday with an outlay of ₹16,250 crore, Andhra Pradesh Agriculture Minister Prathipati Pullarao said an amount of ₹7,692 crore would be spent under the Plan and ₹8,558 crore under non-Plan heads.

Grains production The planned expenditure would include an allocation of ₹1,312 crore for the core agriculture area, with the remaining amount allocated for the allied sectors.

The Minister said that the area under cultivation during 2015-16 had come down due to inadequate rainfall.

Quoting the revised second advance estimates for 2015-16, he said the foodgrains production was estimated to be 137.56 lakh tonnes as against 160 lakh tonnes in 2014-15.

However, the State witnessed a substantial increase in the production of pulses. The pulses output rose to 12.65 lakh tonnes in 2015-16 from 9.5 lakh tonnes in the previous year.

The oilseed sector too registered growth with the production going up to 8.69 lakh tonnes in 2015-16 from 5.91 lakh tonnes the previous year.