Hyderabad: An innovative scheme launched in the field of agriculture, Rythu Bandhu has completed 5 years on Wednesday since its inception in Telangana.
The scheme is an initiative of chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao for extending a helping hand to the peasant community, from which a staggering 70 lakh farmers benefited, at a cost of Rs 65,000 crore paid to them in 10 instalments so far.
To rule out the financial distress under which the farmers survived, KCR announced the scheme at a conference of the Rythu Samanvaya Samiti at the Prof Jayashankar Telangana State Agriculture University on February 25, 2018.
Following the announcement, a budgetary allocation of Rs 12,000 crore was made in the same year before the scheme was formally launched at Dharmarajpalli village in Karimnagar district on May 10, 2018.
Rythu Bandhu received an overwhelming response in Telangana and turned out to be a path-breaking initiative that inspired the launch of the PM Kisan Yojana by the Centre and the Kalia programme by the BJP government in Odisha.
With 10 instalments offered under the scheme so far, a sum of Rs 7217.54 crore was released as assistance for 144.35 lakh acres benefiting 63.97 lakh farmers this year.
In addition, the scheme was acclaimed by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations as one of the top 20 schemes announced for farmer welfare in the country.
Adding on to the pro-farmer policies, the state government introduced the Farmers Group Life Insurance Scheme (Rythu Bima), under which it extends an insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh to farmers.3
With an objective to provide financial relief and social security to families and dependents in case of the death of a farmer due to any reason, a total of 99,297 farmers’ families have received Rs 4,965 crore under Rythu Bima to date.
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