Hyderabad: Farm mechanisation, horticulture likely to get budget booster dose

Hyderabad: The farm mechanisation and horticulture sectors which are lagging behind in the agriculture domain in the State are likely to get a budget boost in the ensuing budget.

According to the State Agriculture Department (SAD) sources, the Telangana State stands second in the entire country in the formation of the Customer Hiring Centres (CHCs), after Andhra Pradesh.

Speaking to The Hans India, a senior SAD official said that there are about 6,572 CHCs in the State. The CHCs are formed to encourage farm mechanisation under the Sub-Mission on Agriculture Mechanisation (SMAM), a centrally sponsored scheme.

The scheme is meant to increase the reach of farm mechanisation to small and marginal farmers and to regions where availability of farm power is low. The CHCs are meant to offset the adverse economies of scale arising due to small landholding and high cost of individual ownership.

As part of this, the State government had launched the farm mechanisation programme with much enthusiasm and "currently, there are about 2,395 agricultural machinery like tractors, harvesters, crop cutters and other machinery which were distributed during the financial years of 2016-18," the sources said.

As per the scheme, farmers can purchase machinery from the agri-tech industries and the subsidy under the scheme provided to the farmer is directly released to the companies. However, as the machinery costs are high, the SMAM had introduced the component of CHCs.

The industries provide machinery to the CHCs and in turn, farmers can hire the machinery depending on the need. The subsidy components would be paid to the companies.

As part of rolling out the scheme, the State government had earmarked about Rs 700 crore during the financial year of 2019-20. However, due to the scarcity of funding, it could only release about Rs 304 crore towards the farm mechanisation component.

But, "the released funds could only meet clearing the pending dues to the companies and no new machinery could be procured to the CHCs," the sources clarified. It was against this backdrop and given the increase in the agriculture output the State government wanted to give priority to the farm mechanisation in the ensuing budget.

Similarly, the State could not spend the targetted expenditure on the horticulture sectors and allied sectors for the last two years. However, the nod for the Centre, to grow oil palm in about 45,000 acres has become a major boost to the State.

That apart, it is also asked the SAD officials to tap into the funds of the Central Sector Schemes under the Remunerative Approach for Agriculture and Allied sector Rejuvenation (RAAASR), the 'Samagra Silk', Bamboo Mission etc.

Also, the government is likely to make the first moves towards implementing its flagship programme of the Crop Colonies Project (CCP) giving priority to the horticulture sector this time, the sources said.