AP CM to meet chickpea farmers today

Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu held a review meeting on problems faced by chickpea farmers' in his office on Tuesday.

During the meeting, Naidu informed that the previous government had neglected chickpea farmers’ due to which the minimum support price (MSP) of chickpea was not hiked. This led to a staggering 33 lakh quintals of produce for the years 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 being stocked in warehouses, cold storages and farmers’ houses.

Chickpea farmers from Kurnool, Guntur, Prakasam, Anantapur and Kadapa districts had expressed their concern over the low support price.

The Chief Minister after being told that Prakasam district farmers were in a bad State, he said he would meet them during Janmabhoomi – Maa Vooru programme on Wednesday.

He further directed the officials to write a letter to the Centre seeking support for chickpea farmers’ and asked them to prepare a plan to check how much of produce would be purchased by the Centre and the State government.
Principal Secretaries Giridhar and Sai Prasad, agriculture and marketing department officials and others were also present.