HYDERABAD: The Central government’s decision to encourage farmers to shift from tobacco to other crops has paid off in the State. Over the past three years, farmers of around 120 hectares in Telangana are now cultivating other crops.

The information, which was tabled by Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Wednesday, observed that there has been a shift of 1.16 lakh ha tobacco land in Andhra Pradesh and 13,858 ha in Gujarat over the past three years. 2,072 ha in Uttar Pradesh and 2,928 ha in West Bengal has been shifted from tobacco. It is important to note that AP (45 per cent), Karnataka (26 per cent), Gujarat (14 per cent), UP (5 per cent), Tamil Nadu (2 per cent), Bihar (2 per cent) and West Bengal (1 per cent) are considered the top producers of tobacco in the country.

In Telangana, the 120 hectare tobacco-free land has been utilised for crop diversification. On the State’s rainfed black soil, a combination of soya bean-pigeon pea and cotton-pigeon pea are being grown. On its rainfed red soil, groundnut is being grown through irrigation.

Lastly, on the State’s alluvial soil, chickpea and chillies are being cultivated.A Indian Council of Agricultural Research - Central Tobacco Research Institute (ICAR-CTRI) research has also revealed that a remunerative cropping system, rather than a sole crop, can be viable alternative to sole tobacco crops.

Shekhawat’s figures also revealed that there has been a marked decrease in annual budgetary allocation by the Centre towards States under the Crop Diversification Programme (CDP). Centre’s contribution to Telangana under CDP for diversification of tobacco farming decreased from `38.50 lakh in 2015 to `10.47 lakh in 2018.