The State Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal to provide smartphones to members of DWCRA groups.

The government would have to spend ₹7,175 crore to extend the benefit to about 94 lakh women members of the Self Help Groups.

The government, however, is yet to decide the date for the launch of the scheme.

Disclosing details of Cabinet meeting, I&PR Minister Kalava Srinivasulu said the Cabinet approved the proposal to spend ₹5,000 per smartphone. The gadgets with SIM cards and three years connectivity would be distributed among the beneficiaries soon, he said.

The Society For Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) was asked to work on the proposal. The guidelines and identification of the company were yet to be finalised, he added.

Agriculture education

The Minister said the Cabinet also cleared the proposal to establish the Andhra Pradesh State Agriculture Council with an objective of regulating the agriculture and horticulture education.

Registration for agriculture and horticulture practitioners would be made mandatory. There was no mechanism to monitor the activities of the agriculture and horticulture practitioners so far, he said.

In response to the requests from the Vokkaliga / Kunchitiga community, the government decided to extend BC (C) reservation to it in Chittoor district.

At present, it is being provided to them only in Madakasira of Anantapur district.

Mr. Srinivasulu said nine animal husbandry polytechnic and nine fisheries polytechnic colleges would be established under Sri Venkateswara Veterinary University. Tirupati. The colleges were being established as it expected that the State would face shortage of experts in these fields by 2022. Each college would have 50 seats. While three colleges got all permissions, six colleges were given conditional permission.

Land allocation

The Cabinet also decided to allot 10 acres of land to the Centre for Economic and Social Studies in Amaravati.

The proposal to allot 17.17 acres of land free of cost to the Industrial park at Balabhadrapuram village in East Godavari; 80 acres of land at Marupalli in Vizianagaram district for an industrial park; 153.13 acres of land for the MSME park at Ambavaram village in Kadapa district were also cleared, he said. Hike in the salary of contingency workers in panchayats, appointing 36 qualified candidates of DSC-1998 on contract basis as secondary grade teachers (SGTs), notional increments to special teachers, appointment of D.Ed and B.Ed candidates of DSC-2008 on contract basis were some of the other decisions taken, he added.