Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Tuesday reviewed the projects of the Agri Infra Fund with the Ministers and senior officials of the departments of Agriculture and its allied sectors such as Marketing, A.P. Dairy Development Cooperative Federation, Fisheries, Food Processing Society and Animal Husbandry.
Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy directed the officials to focus on developing fishing harbours at Kakinada, Kothapatnam (Prakasam district) and Pudimadaka (Visakhapatnam district).
The officials explained that the projects had an outlay of ₹15,743 crore.
“I want complete integration of facilities provided to the farmers. Multi Purpose Facility Centres should be set up at the Rythu Bharosa Kendras. Farmers should get access to dry storage facilities, drying platforms, PDS warehouses, Janata Bazaars, and all these 16 projects should be taken up on a war-footing. We are setting up 4,277 dry storage facilities, drying platforms, 60 PDS warehouses, 1,483 milk procurement centres, cold rooms, turmeric boilers, 10,678 milk collection points,” said Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy.
He said that 9,899 Bulk Milk Cooling units and 8,051 Automatic Milk Cooling units would be built over the next one year, and the estimates were ₹1,885.76 crore for the BMCs and ₹942.77 crore for the AMCs. Land acquisition would commence for the construction of these units, he said.
Milk procurement
The officials explained that milk procurement through Amul Dairy was going on, and so far 50.01 lakh litres was procured from 12,342 farmers and bills worth ₹23.42 crore were paid.
In the first phase, four fishing harbours – Uppada (East Godavari), Nizampatnam (Guntur), Machilipatnam (Krishna), and Juvvaladinne (Nellore), would be completed by December 2022, the officials said.
In the second phase, fishing harbours would be built at Budagatlapalem (Srikakulam), Pudimadaka (Visakhapatnam), Biyyaputippa (West Godavari), and Odarevu (Prakasam).
Food processing
The State government would also build 10,111 food processing units in every parliamentary constituency and would also begin millet processing units.
The government would also build 10,750 custom hiring centres on a par with the Rythu Bharosa Kendras. Hightech farm mechanisation hubs would be set up at 175 places in the State.
Minister for Agriculture K. Kanna Babu, Special Chief Secretary Poonam Malakondaiah, Special Chief Secretary (Industries) Karikala Valavan, Secretary (Finance) S.S. Rawat, Principal Secretary (Marketing) Y. Madhusudana Reddy, Commissioner (Marketing) P.S. Pradyumna, and APDDCF Director Ahmed Babu were present.
