CM asks officials to make availalbe fertilizers

Hyderabad, Oct 17 (UNI) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy today directed the officials to make available sufficient stocks of fertilizers and ensure its smooth distribution to all needy farmers.

He was reviewing agriculture-related issues Minister Mr N Raghuveera Reddy and senior officials.

The Chief Minister was informed that as against normal sowing of 79.02 lakh hectare, 79.19 lakh hectare was sown during this Kharif and except Kadapa, Prakasam and Nellore, other districts had crossed the normal area of sowing due to more than average rainfall.

Due to untimely rains, crops were damaged in 1.90 lakh hectare and a sum of Rs 73 crore released towards input subsidy against the actual requirement of Rs 83.60 crore.

Noting the groundnut production had fallen drastically to Four lakh tonne this year against 20 lakh tonne last year, the Chief Minister directed the officials to take up crop cutting experiments transparently by involving farmers and local peoples' representatives and come to the rescue of all the affected farmers by paying crop insurance.

Soyabean and Cotton sowing had increased due to higher area of coverage this year.

Soyabean production is expected to be around 2.57 lakh tonne as against 1.72 lakh tonne last year and 13.45 lakh tonne of cotton production was expected as against 11.34 lakh tonne last year, the officials said.

Owing to satisfactory inflows in reservoirs and tanks, and fairly good ground water recharge, Rabi action plan has been prepared for 42.00 lakh hectare as against normal Rabi area of 36.34 lakh hectare and 40.24 lakh hectare during last Rabi.

There was no problem for fertilizer supply during Rabi as 5.89 lakh tonne of fertilizers was made available already against the requirement of 7.41 lakh tonne during October .

Regarding seeds, the officials said there were sufficient stocks of seeds available except sunflower.

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