Only 20 quintals of cotton sold to CCI

Hyderabad: Cotton farmers are opting to sell their produce to private players rather than at the procurement centres of the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) due to prices being quoted over and above the Minimum Support Price (MSP).

According to the agriculture department officials, the CCI centres in the State could so far procure only 20 quintals of cotton from the farmers in the State.

Principal Secretary Agriculture C Parathasarathi said the MSP for cotton announced is Rs 5,700 per quintal and the Agriculture and Marketing Department (AMD) opened procurement centres in 27 out of 106 market yards.

Besides, procurement centres have also been opened at 207 ginning mills in the State. As the price offered by the private players is more than the MSP, farmers have so far sold about 6.64 lakh quintals of cotton to the private players and only 20 quintals to the CCI, he added.

Meanwhile, Green gram procurement prices in the market are lesser than the MSP. The department has so far opened eight out of nine procurement centres and so far, 12,219 metric tonnes have been procured with about Rs 85.30 crore.

Since the market prices are lesser than MSP, the State government asked the centre to increase the procurement target of the Green gram fixed at 11,500 metric tonnes so as to procure more stocks of Green gram from the farmers.

Procurement of maize at the MSP prices of Rs 1,700 has been going on and the department has established 187 out of 259 procurement centres. So far, the department has spent Rs 189 crore to procure 1, 16,614 metric tonnes of maize, he said.

Similarly, as against the fixed target of 70,250 metric tonnes of procurement of soybeans, the department has opened 26 procurement centres and lifted 2,371 metric tonnes of stocks, Parthasarathi said.