Government vows to procure paddy from farmers of Telangana

Hyderabad: Estimating about one crore metric tonnes of paddy this year, the Civil Supplies Minister Gangula Kamalakar on Thursday said that the State government would procure every food grain produced by the farmers of Telangana.

The Minister chaired a high-level review meeting with the Agriculture, Civil Supplies, Police and Marketing Departments on procurement of food grains. The Minister said that the production of agricultural products has increased significantly in the State, without increasing an inch of land. About 1.41 crore metric tonnes of food grain has been grown, taking the second place in the country from 24 lakh metric tonnes. He said that the policy of the State government was to increase wealth and distribute it to the poor, and the Telangana government had succeeded in this with revolutionary reforms in the agriculture sector.

Minister Gangula said that the paddy has been grown in about 65 lakh acres in the State out of which about 1 crore metric tons of grain will come to the purchase centres. He said that the government would take all the steps to ensure there is no difficulty for the farmers in the collection of grains, they were ready with the necessary gunny bags, humidifier machines, paddy cleaners and tarpaulins, and they will buy every grain grown by Telangana farmers.

He asked the vigilance as well as police department to take steps to prevent the entry of a single bag of grain from the neighbouring states since 17 districts have borders with neighbouring states.

Kamalakar said that there should be no relation with the miller after the farmers sell the crop at the purchase centres. He suggested the farmers to bring the grains to the buying centres with FAQ (fair average quality) standards as FCI was strictly maintaining the fair average quality. In this way, the authorities should take steps to make the farmers aware, he told the officials.