Telangana to have special farm budget, divide cultivable land into clusters

Higher outlay for sector on cards, 5,000-acre cluster size conceived to improve cropping, marketing

The Telangana government will present a special budget for agriculture from next year with enhanced budgetary allocations for the sector.

Besides this, the entire farmland in the state would be divided into 2,500 clusters with a standard size of 5,000 acres each for better crop planning, marketing assistance among other governmental support to the farming community, chief minister K Chandrasekhara Rao said.

The new initiatives for the farm sector come after the completion of a Rs 17,000-crore farm-loan waiver earlier this year. Keen on maintaining his administration's image of a farmer-friendly government, the chief minister recently announced a fertiliser subsidy of Rs