VIJAYAWADA: Andhra Pradesh will soon have Village Malls across the state. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has announced that all the 29,000 ration shops across the state will be transformed as Village Malls. As such, 6,500 malls will be set up in the first phase and called ‘Anna Village Malls’.
The CM has directed the department concerned to recruit dealers for the 4,599 ration shops immediately. The CM has also instructed that half a kg of sugar with 50 per cent subsidy should be distributed to the white ration card holders from next year.
One crore acres of land for agriculture is the target for 2017-18. Officials reported to the Chief Minister about the composition and break-up of the land for the production of fruits, vegetables, plantation crops, spices, flowers and aromatic plants. The productivity of most crops will differ from district to district; there would also be several crop-wise interventions in the growing of one particular kind of crop.
The Chief Minister said that as opposed to a district-wise approach, the department should follow a cluster-wise approach and organise the data in an integrated way.
“In a PPP mode, you must engage services to take care of all aspects of horticulture, from pre-harvest to post-harvest,” he said.
Mr. Naidu has examined the reports submitted by the agriculture department and allied sectors, on Friday. The projected growth for the kharif season this year is 12 per cent, while the rabi season growth rate in 2016 was 31 per cent.
The CM has said that the agriculture sector must grow by 25 per cent, and the state must work towards this figure with concerted effort.
Meanwhile this year, the state recorded 3.5 percent more than the normal rainfall while in districts like Nellore, Chittoor, Kadapa and Ananthapuram, it was 20 percent more than normal. As part of providing protective irrigation in drought affected areas, 810 acres of 'moisture stress' areas were treated with rain guns with 15 MI companies participating in a systematically driven programme utilizing 600 moisture sensors.
Contingency crop seeds with a 100 percent subsidy will be distributed in Prakasam and Rayalseema districts. Orders were issued in August to distribute 1.4 lakh quintals of seed on 100 percent subsidy to drought affected districts. The targeted area for kharif crop cultivation is 42.07 lakh hectares, whereas the season's normal area was 40.47 lakh hectares.
