Warehousing capacity goes up to 21 lakh tonnes: Harish

​Hyderabad: Telangana State is number one in constructing a huge number of warehouses in the country and farmers are witnessing a golden era of all support for farming activities, said Marketing and Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao here on Saturday.

He was participating as a chief guest in Diamond jubilee celebrations of State Warehousing Corporation at Haritha Plaza here. Speaking on the occasion, the Minister said Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had launched welfare schemes for farmers in a big way. Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bima proved beneficiate for farmers. The number of suicides by farmers had drastically come down, he said.

The TRS government has increased warehouse capacity to 21 lakh metric tons from 10 lakh metric tons in four years and increased occupancy ratio to 100 per cent. In just four years, the KCR government constructed 11 lakh metric ton capacity warehouses afresh in four years.

The development of warehousing corporation was due to combined efforts of KCR who gave money and the staff contribution, he said. “With KCR assurance, we have taken steps for constructing new warehouses to cater to the needs of farmers despite pressure against it, he said. The TRS government brought in 12 lakh acres under irrigation through various projects and stabilised 12 lakh acres aycut through the flagship Mission Kakatiya programme.

He also said that 24-hours free power, Rs 4,000 per acre crop capital investment, adequate stocks of fertilisers and seeds enhanced agriculture production in the State. The Congress regime had failed to provide 9-hour power in phases and dumped the farmers and ignored the projects, he ridiculed. Since that State received rains and MSP was offered to several crops, the Warehousing staff should be ready for procuring more produce, he said.