Rythu Vedikas Starved of Maintenance Funds for Four Years

Karimnagar: The Rythu Vedikas developed for the benefit of farmers are facing financial constraints for their maintenance.

Agricultural officials said maintenance charges have not been released during the last four years. “We have to spend money from our pockets,” they claimed.

The previous BRS government constructed a Rythu Vedika for every 5,000 acres of land and deployed agriculture extension officers as their in-charges. The aim was to provide a platform for the farming community to share their ideas about new techniques in farming and overcome insect attacks on crops.

Initially, for every month, a sum of Rs 3,000 was given to each vedika for its maintenance. Since the amount did not suffice, agriculture officials repeatedly pleaded for an enhancement of the amount.

Based on this, the government hiked the amount to Rs 9,000. The amount is divided for works such as sanitation (Rs 3000), power bills (Rs 1000), stationery items (Rs 1000), drinking water (Rs 500), minor repairs (Rs 1000) and refreshments like tea and snacks (Rs 2,500) when training programmes are conducted for farmers.

However, AEOs are spending money from their pockets as the maintenance bills have not been cleared by the government during the last four years.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Jagtial District Agriculture Officer V. Bhaskar said it had become difficult to pay electricity bills, maintain sanitation and conduct farmers' meetings as maintenance grants for Rythu Vedikas had not been released for the past four years. He said Agriculture Extension Officers (AEOs) were spending money from their own pockets to meet these expenses.

A total of 258 rythu vedikas were developed in the erstwhile Karimnagar district, including 76 in Karimnagar, Jagtial-71, Rajanna-Sircilla- 57 and Peddapalli-54.

The government launched the video-conference system in Rythu Vedikas in 2024. In addition to the existing infrastructure, a big-sized TV, setup box, and inverters were also arranged by spending Rs 4.5 lakh.

The video conference system was launched in order to have interaction with agricultural scientists and higher officials to enable farmers to learn about new trends in the sector and problems in cultivation.