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Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu today said his government would set a target of achieving 20-25 per cent growth in the agriculture sector in 2015-16.
Bringing new areas under irrigation, use of drip irrigation, introducing new technologies to improve productivity and yields are going to be some of the actions the government would initiate to achieve the target, according to him.
“In the first six months this year, AP’s agriculture sector grew 11 per cent as compared with the all India average of 3.55 per cent even though the state experienced a 36 per cent deficit rainfall during the period. With good efforts from the government and farmers, it is quite possible to achieve high growth targets," he said at a credit seminar held by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard).
The government would also introduce commodity-wise targets to monitor production in the state as they are planning to create market linkages between the farmer and big corporate houses such as PepsiCo and Wal-Mart going forward.
Nabard has estimated a credit potential for Rs 98,679 crore in the priority sector for 2015-16, an increase of 27 per cent over the credit plan approved for the current year. The priority sector includes clop loans of Rs 50,979 crore, agriculture term loans at Rs 18,570 crore, loans to micro small and medium enterprises sector at Rs 11,997 crore and loans to other priority sector at Rs 17,133 crore.
Nabard has also prepared district-wise proposals for requirement of funds to complete critical infrastructure projects in all the 13 districts. It has identified a total number of 998 projects requiring about Rs 21,072 crore.
