During the daylong visit to the state, the prime minister met the relatives of the farmers and took a first-hand account of their problems. Singh's Congress party chalked up a landslide victory in Andhra Pradesh in May ending the decade-old rule of BJP ally Telugu Desam Party

The Congress government in Andhra Pradesh hopes that Singh's visit will restate the commitment to bailing out the debt-stricken farmers and rejuvenate the rural economy.

Singh's trip to Andhra Pradesh clearly signalled the farm-mooring of India's Congress-led coalition government which returned to power on the strength of the support of a major chunk of farmers who rejected the previous BJP-led regime's "feel-good" and "India Shining" campaign.

Analysts say Congress is all set to build on this constituency of farmers for political considerations especially with elections to legislatures in four states including Maharashtra, Bihar and Jharkhand.

When Finance Minister P Chidambaram presents budget in Parliament on July 8 his target will be the farm sector and rural India.

According to available indications so far, the first budget of the new government will provide a major thrust to the agriculture sector and employment-generation on a big scale which was the ruling United Progressive Alliance's first major politic-economic statement after it scored a stunning victory in recent general elections.

The Manmohan Singh government, according to analysts, is keen that its first budget sends out the right political and economic messages and the Prime Minister himself is taking active interest in the budget-making. Quite natural for a man who as the Finance Minister had launched India on the path of economic reforms way back in 1991.

The budget, according to sources, is expected to keep the target audience the "aam aadmi" (common man), a constituency the Congress and its allies had appealed to in the general elections.

Keeping this in view, the Manmohan Singh government had last announced even before the budget presentation a package of measures for the farmers to enhance the flow of credit to farmers by liberalizing eligibility norms for fresh loans especially from state-owned commercial banks, regional rural banks and cooperatives.

Under the package, banks will be allowed to take over the loans taken by farmers from non-institutional players like money lenders. This would be a step expected to relieve the farmers off their crushing debt burden that had led to a spate of suicides in states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala, the last two states being ruled by Congress since long.

The package also contains debt restructuring for farmers who have reeled under losses due to drought, floods and other calamities.

Besides, farmers who defaulted in payment of loans will be given new opportunities to reschedule their loans and avail fresh credit and banks will be permitted to go in for one-time settlement in such cases.

The package was seen by analysts as the new government's move to build on its pro-farmers' image and Chidambaram repeatedly emphasized that farmers need urgent help at this juncture.

The thrust on farm sector was also very much evident in Manmohan Singh's first address to the nation on completing the first month in office late last month. He talked about creating a single market across India for agricultural and manufactured products and outlined a roadmap that could spur demand and growth in vast rural tracts where 72 percent of the country's nearly one billion population lives.

The ode to farmers was the key element in Singh's speech as he pointed out that although the peasantry had been in distress for last five to six years, their interests remained neglected.

Continuing the government's farmer-friendly musings, Manmohan Singh also convened a meeting of Chief Ministers of states and met a delegation of a dozen of farmers' unions and heard out a range of issues relating to agriculture sector.

The farmers of Communist Party of India's farmers front also met Singh and demanded that the government, which holds annual pre-budget consultations with various sectors, also gives a hearing to the peasants.

The coming budget is expected to come out with major programmes for last-mile completion of irrigation projects, strengthening of agricultural research and building farm infrastructure watershed, land development and post-harvest storage.

A significant hike in allocation for supply of inputs, especially fertilizer, to farmers is expected and the accelerated irrigation benefit programme, which was discarded by the previous government, is likely to be revived

With regard to employment guarantee programme, a parliamentary bill for National Employment Guarantee Act is likely to be introduced by the government. This would be in line with the promise made by the common minimum programme which unveils the political, economic and foreign policy agenda of Congress and its allies in the post-poll UPA.

The proposed Act is likely to provide legal guarantee for at least 100 days of employment on asset-building public works every year at minimum wage for at least one able-bodied person in every poor and lower middle class household.

The budget's stress on agriculture is also aimed to generating of new jobs as public investment in agriculture sector will be increased substantially, farm insurance schemes will be more tuned to the needs of the farmers and private investment in agro-processing industry will be encouraged.