Farmers To Get Rythu Bandhu Aid From Tomorrow: KCR

Ahead of the Yasangi (rabi) cropping season, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao today instructed the officials concerned to deposit Rs 5,000 per acre into the accounts of all the eligible farmers in the state from December 28.

At a high level review meeting on the Rythu Bandhu scheme held at the Pragathi Bhavan, KCR directed the officials to distribute Rs 7,515 crore among 61.50 lakh farmers in the state by directly depositing the money into the farmers' bank accounts by January 7.

The Chief Minister also instructed the officials to ensure that each and every farmer in the state got financial help under the scheme, and asked them to prepare an action plan for that.

"The assistance should be given first to the farmers with small landholdings, and then to those with medium- and large-sized lands. The entire aid distribution process should be wrapped up in about ten days," he added.

As the money will be deposited directly to their accounts, the beneficiaries will be able to withdraw the sum from the post offices near them, without having to travel to any towns or cities to access the same.

They will have the option of withdrawing the aid through the micro ATMs that can be found at the 4,860 post offices spread across rural Telangana, too.

At the meeting, KCR also reportedly asked the officials of the finance department to release Rs 7,515 crore for the purpose.

Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, Finance Principal Secretary Ramakrishna Rao and Agriculture Principal Secretary Janardhan Reddy were among those who participated in the meeting.