Jagananna Jeeva Kranthi Scheme

What was the Jagananna Jeeva Kranthi Scheme?

Jagananna Jeeva Kranthi was a livestock-based livelihood scheme of the Andhra Pradesh Department of Animal Husbandry, launched on 10 December 2020. The scheme gave women from BC, SC, ST and minority communities a sheep or goat unit worth Rs 75,000, so that a household with no dependable earning could build an asset that produces income year after year.

The name translates roughly as "life revolution", and the scheme is also written as Jagananna Jeeva Kranti in some official communications.

The design was straightforward. Rather than a cash transfer, the state supplied a breeding unit to 15 animals capable of reproducing: on the reasoning that a flock compounds while cash does not. A well-managed unit of 14 ewes and a ram produces lambs each season, and the household earns from sale of stock rather than from a one-time payment.

Important status update. Jagananna Jeeva Kranthi is closed. The government distributed all planned units across three phases and completed the programme in December 2021. Applications are no longer accepted. Following the change of administration in Andhra Pradesh in June 2024, many schemes carrying the "Jagananna" and "YSR" prefixes were renamed or discontinued, and no successor to this livestock scheme has been announced. This guide documents what the scheme was and where livestock support stands now, because women who received units in 2021 still search for its terms.

Who was eligible for Jagananna Jeeva Kranthi?

A woman could be selected if:

• She was aged between 45 and 60 years. The age band was the scheme's defining feature. It targeted women past the age at which daily wage labour is physically dependable but well short of old-age pension eligibility. A gap in which many rural women have no independent income at all.
• She belonged to a BC, SC, ST or minority community.
• She was a member of a DWCRA self-help group, since units were grounded in convergence with the District Rural Development Agency and the SHG network rather than through individual applications.
• She was a resident of the village where the unit was to be grounded, and the household could realistically maintain a flock of 15 animals with access to grazing or fodder.

A person was not eligible if:

• She was outside the 45 to 60 age band. Younger and older women were not eligible under this scheme, however poor.
• The household was not in the BC, SC, ST or minority categories.
• She was not enrolled in a self-help group, because there was no individual application route into the scheme at any point.
• Men. The scheme was restricted to women beneficiaries throughout.
• Another member of the same household had already received a unit. The benefit was one unit per household.

There was no online application form and no self-registration portal. Any website claiming to accept a Jagananna Jeeva Kranthi application, then or now, is not an official channel.

What did a unit contain?

Each unit was standardised:

Including a breeding male in every unit was the point of the design. A unit of 14 females alone would be a stock of meat animals; adding a ram or buck makes it a self-reproducing asset, and it is the reason the scheme was pitched as an income source rather than a one-off handout.

Allowing breed choice was equally deliberate. Nellore Brown sheep suit the drier interior districts, coastal conditions favour different stock, and Black Bengal goats are prized for prolificacy. Survival rates in livestock schemes collapse when animals are trucked into a climate and fodder regime they are not adapted to, so local breed selection was built in.

Insurance and veterinary support were part of the package. Beneficiaries received an Animal Health Card to record vaccination and treatment, and veterinary staff of the Animal Husbandry Department provided medical assistance and routine services. Insurance cover, folded into the Rs 75,000, protected the household against losing the asset to disease.

How were beneficiaries selected and units grounded?

Jagananna Jeeva Kranthi did not use an application-and-approval model. The selection route was:

1. Self-help group identification. DWCRA self-help groups, working with the District Rural Development Agency, identified members in the 45 to 60 age band from the eligible communities.
2. Verification of age, community and household against Aadhaar, the caste certificate and the ration card, to confirm eligibility and to ensure one unit per household.
3. Bank linkage through the self-help group, through which the unit cost was routed. Livestock schemes in Andhra Pradesh have conventionally combined government assistance with SHG credit rather than handing over cash.
4. Procurement and grounding at the Rythu Bharosa Kendram, the village-level farmer service centre, where animals were handed over to the beneficiary along with the Animal Health Card.
5. Post-grounding veterinary follow-up by the Mandal Veterinary Hospital and departmental field staff.

How the scheme was rolled out

The programme ran to a published three-phase calendar, funded at Rs 1,869 crore for 2,49,151 units:

Phasing on this scale was a procurement necessity rather than an administrative preference. Sourcing nearly 2.5 lakh units — over 37 lakh animals, in one go would have distorted livestock markets across the region and driven up the price of breeding stock against the state's own beneficiaries.

What documents were required?

How to apply for livestock support now that Jeeva Kranthi has closed

Jagananna Jeeva Kranthi itself accepts no applications. A woman in Andhra Pradesh looking for livestock support today should work through these routes instead:

1. Mandal Veterinary Hospital and the District Animal Husbandry Officer. The standing departmental schemes for sheep, goat, backyard poultry and dairy units, which run on annual district plans rather than as a statewide campaign.
2. National Livestock Mission, the centrally sponsored scheme that supports small ruminant breeding units and entrepreneurship, applied for through the state Animal Husbandry Department.
3. Self-help group credit linkage under the rural livelihoods mission, which remains the most reliable route to financing a livestock asset for a woman already in an SHG.
4. Rythu Bharosa Kendram in your village, which continues to operate as the first point of contact for agriculture and allied-sector queries.

Why some units failed and what it teaches

Livestock distribution schemes across India share a common set of failure points, and Jeeva Kranthi beneficiaries who lost animals generally lost them for one of these reasons:

• Fodder and grazing not secured before the unit arrived. Fifteen animals need a reliable feed base, and a household without grazing access or the means to buy fodder cannot carry the flock through a dry season.
• Insurance claims not filed when animals died, usually because the beneficiary did not know the cover existed or could not produce the post-mortem certificate the insurer required.
• Vaccination missed, particularly against PPR and enterotoxaemia, which the Animal Health Card exists to track.
• Distress sale of the breeding male, which converts a reproducing unit back into a stock of meat animals and ends the income stream.

Any household still holding animals from a 2021 unit should keep the Animal Health Card current and use the free vaccination camps run by the Mandal Veterinary Hospital.

Where to get help

• Mandal Veterinary Hospital or the Rythu Bharosa Kendram in your village, the first stop for animal health and for current livestock schemes.
• District Animal Husbandry Officer at the district collectorate.
• Department of Animal Husbandry, Government of Andhra Pradesh, and the Animal Husbandry, Dairy Development and Fisheries Department.

Selection under this scheme was free and ran through the self-help group network. Any agent who claimed a fee to secure a sheep or goat unit was operating a fraud, and the same holds for anyone offering one today under a scheme that no longer exists.