KADAPA: Thirty-five bulk milk chilling centres will be set up in Kadapa district in addition to five existing ones and village organisations would be entrusted their maintenance, Collector M.T. Krishna Babu said on Tuesday.

Seven thousand cows of Jersey and Murra breeds were being procured from Haryana for distribution among DWCRA women in order to give a fillip to dairying, he told a rythu sadassu on Badvel market yard premises. They would be given on 50 per cent subsidy under Prime Minister and Chief Minister's packages. JK Trust would set up 60 artificial insemination centres in the district. The Government allotted Rs. 80 crores for promoting dairying in Kadapa district, he said.

Irrigation water would be released from Brahmamsagar reservoir to the ayacut of 1.17 lakh acres by September this year, Mr. Krishna Babu said. Recalling that UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi released water to 50,000 acres last year, he said completion of Telugu Ganga Project would make Badvel area fertile. Farmers were being assisted to the tune of Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 40,000 per acre under the Andhra Pradesh Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to improve their fields. He urged small and marginal farmers to utilise the aid to develop up to five acres of their fields under APREGS. As crops withered away due to deficient rainfall, crops that require low investment must be raised. Modern agricultural implements would be given on 50 per cent subsidy.

Irrigation projects

The Government was according priority to irrigation projects, Badvel MLA D.C. Govinda Reddy said and urged distressed farmers not to end lives. The Government was extending free power supply, subsidised farm tools, Indira Prabha and APREGS, to aid farmers. He urged farmers to take up alternate means as agriculture drove them into debts. The Chief Minister was paying special emphasis on setting up steel and cement industries to generate employment. Farmers must divert their children to other sectors.

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