NELLORE: After 21 more mandals in Prakasam and Chittoor districts have been declared drought prone, the State Agriculture Ministry has chalked out an action plan to distribute 83,378 quintals of seeds to farmers to raise alternative crops, said Agriculture Minister Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy.
Speaking to the media at the R&B guest house here, the minister said that eight districts in the State have received deficit rainfall. “Earlier, the State government had announced 275 mandals drought prone and later added 21 more mandals, taking the total to 296,” said the minister. The Pulichintala project has been receiving good inflows as Tungabhadra, Srisailam, and Nagarjuna Sagar reservoirs have reached full reservoir levels, he added.
The minister informed that the State Agriculture Ministry has sent a proposal to the Central government to grant `141.35 crore input subsidy for farmers to save their crops from withering. He said that the State government has released a budget of `147.63 crore for the development of drought prone mandals in five districts of the State.
He said that the government had announced a crop insurance policy with a budget of `399.36 crore in 2017-18 and `819.20 crore in 2016-17. “We saved crops in 18,708 hectares with the help of rain guns and sprinklers. Farmers have raised horticulture crops in 42 lakh acres and the government aims to increase area under horticulture to one crore acre,” the minister said.