Amaravati: The Andhra Pradesh cabinet has approved a significant increase in the annual payments made to farmers who gave up their land for the state capital, in one of the most consequential decisions to emerge from its meeting chaired by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Friday.
Under the revised terms, owners of dry land who joined the Land Pooling Scheme will now receive Rs 40,000 per acre every year, up from Rs 30,000, while owners of irrigated land will get Rs 60,000 per acre instead of Rs 50,000. The enhanced annuity will run for the next ten years, with a built-in annual increment of Rs 3,000 per acre for dry land and Rs 5,000 per acre for irrigated land.
Loan waiver for phase-two villages
The cabinet also cleared a waiver of agricultural loans of up to Rs 1.5 lakh for farmers across seven villages who are contributing land under the second phase of Amaravati’s expansion. The waiver applies only to loans taken before January 6, 2026, a cut-off designed to prevent fresh borrowing aimed at exploiting the scheme.
For families displaced by capital construction, the monthly subsistence allowance has been doubled from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 for a period of one year, a measure that will benefit 634 households. The cabinet further approved compensation for 307 acres of assigned and inam lands, with Rs 159 crore to be paid to the endowments department.
Taken together, the package is being read as an attempt to rebuild trust with the thousands of farmers whose roughly 34,000 acres formed the foundation of the greenfield capital a decade ago, and to smoothen land acquisition as the government pushes ahead with the second phase of city-building.
Tourism and security also on the table
Beyond Amaravati, the cabinet approved an addendum to the AP Tourism Policy 2024-29, giving fresh incentives to investors in the sector, and cleared the establishment of a special NIA court in the state to fast-track terrorism-related cases.
Ministers described the meeting as focused squarely on delivery, with the Chief Minister asking departments to move implementation orders on the annuity hike without delay so that farmers see the higher payments in the current financial year. For the capital-region farmers who have waited through years of political flux, the raise is both money in hand and a signal that Amaravati is back on track.
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