Hyderabad: A study of the Rythu Bandhu farmer assistance scheme (RBS) has found that the flagship programme of the state government has reduced reliance on informal moneylenders for many landowning farmers, but has left tenant cultivators and the poorest landholders largely outside its protection. Following a survey in five districts, the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS) has called for the scheme to be redesigned around actual cultivation by farmers rather than land ownership.
Between 2015 and 2020, the share of farmers borrowing from informal sources fell from 84.7 per cent to 70.2 per cent among small farmers, from 82.5 to 62.1 per cent among medium farmers, and from 78.1 to 64.9 per cent among large farmers. Marginal farmers saw only a small decline — from 91.8 per cent to 90.8, indicating that the scheme had done little to ease their credit dependence.
The study concluded that the RBS had improved liquidity for relatively better-positioned landowners, while the most resource-poor cultivators remained vulnerable to debt and financial instability. Tenant farmers, who are excluded from direct benefits, continued to depend heavily on informal lenders. The survey covered 817 households across five districts.
Although RBS is formally open to all landowning farmers, the CESS found that 27.72 per cent of farmland in the villages it surveyed was not covered by the scheme. The report attributed this to missing or inaccurate pattadar passbooks, mismatches among Aadhaar, bank-account and land-record details, and land classified as forest, podu, community or wasteland.
Coverage was lowest among marginal farmers, with 30.59 per cent of their land excluded, compared with 14.47 per cent for large farmers. In Bussapur, nearly 60 per cent of forest-classified land was outside the RBS, while 58.4 per cent of land in Gareebpeta remained uncovered.
The report recommended including small and marginal landowners and tenants operating less than five acres, imposing a five-acre ceiling on beneficiaries, and excluding absentee or non-cultivating landowners. It also urged the state to document tenant farmers and agricultural labourers, resolve tribal land-title issues, and fix administrative lacunae in the Dharani portal.
The study suggested shifting RBS from an ownership-based entitlement to cultivation-based support to improve targeting, protect vulnerable cultivators, and make Telangana’s agricultural support system more equitable and sustainable.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
