The Rythu Bandhu scheme launched in Telangana in May 2018 was a big success and had fetched tremendous political mileage to Telangana Rashtra Samithi in December 2018 assembly elections.
Despite its hiccups midway, the scheme is being implemented for the third consecutive season in the state, though there are reports that Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is contemplating making certain changes in the scheme by next Khariff.
In Andhra Pradesh, the scheme was partially implemented during the fag-end tenure of Telugu Desam Party president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu in the name of “Annadata Sukhibhava,” but it did not yield any positive result for the TDP in the last elections.
Now, the YSR Congress party government led by chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has announced implementation of the same scheme with a different name – YSR Rythu Bharosa, under which each farmer will get Rs 12,500 per year, with effect from October 15.
However, on Monday, the government has come out with a set of guidelines to implement the scheme, restricting it to only poor farmers and exempting the rich and mighty farmers from the scheme, unlike in Telangana, where all farmers, irrespective of their land holding.
According to the latest guidelines, the following are ineligible to get benefit under Rythu Bharosa:
*Non-agricultural lands belonging to different organisations
*More than one farmers belonging to the same family
*Present and past members of constitutional bodies
*Present and past ministers/parliament members/assembly and council members/municipal corporation mayors, presidents and zilla parishad chairpersons
*Working and retired officials of various state government departments, present and retired employees of various state and central government departments and concerned organisations, their affiliated organisations at the field level, state and central public sector undertakings and their associated organisations, government-aided autonomous organisations and local bodies (except fourth-class employees and Group-D employees).
*Those from above categories getting pension of Rs 10,000 and more
*Those who paid income tax the previous year
*Doctors, engineers, lawyers, charted accountants and architechts who have registered their names for practice
*Those who got their lands converted from agriculture to residential purposes and other non-agricultural purposes
*And those who had paid commercial tax/professional tax and GST last year.
However, though these categories are not able to get the benefit under Rythu Bharosa, those who have been cultivating the lands on lease will be eligible to get the benefit under Rythu Bharosa, an official statement said.