Officials told to make adequate arrangement for paddy procurement
As Rangareddy was high yielding, officials’ told to procure last drop of grain from farmers
Rangareddy: Following a report of a bounty of paddy harvest this year in the Rangareddy district, the officials were told to make adequate arrangements to ensure last drop of procurement of grain from the farmers at FCI centres in the district. According to reports the farmers in different mandals have begun bringing their produce to the FCI centres in the district. The officials are on their toes to put proper arrangements into play to avoid any issue relating to procurement and safety of the grain at procurement centres.
Following the reports that the farmers in different districts have begun bringing their produce to the procurement centres in big amount, Ministers Uttam Kumar Reddy, Tummala Nageshwar Rao and Ponnam Prabhakar held a review meeting on Friday through video conference with all the district collectors and additional collectors besides officials from civil supplies in the State. The meeting saw the presence of Chief Secretary to Government Ramakrishna Rao and Civil Supplies Commissioner DS Chauhan.
Speaking on the occasion, Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy revealed that a record amount of paddy has been cultivated in the State this time during the Rabi season. As such, the government has decided to carry out paddy procurement task as a ‘great yagna’ and is purchasing paddy from farmers on a large scale at a minimum support price. Besides, bonuses will also be paid for the preparations.
While elaborating about the current years’ paddy cultivation he said that paddy crops were raised in 60.14 lakh acres in the State of which 129.35 lakh metric tons of paddy was produced. Accordingly, a target has been set to procure 70.13 metric tons of grain through 8,329 procurement centres across the State. So far, 49.53 lakh metric tons of grain reserves have already been procured through government-established procurement centres across Telangana. The minister claimed that the amount of grain procurement this year is almost double compared to the last three years; as against 25.35 lakh metric tons of grain procured during the Rabi season in 2022-23 while the year 2023-24 saw a quantum of procurement reached to 32.93 lakh metric tons. He explained that 49.53 lakh metric tons of grain have already been procured for Rabi season this year. He asked the District Collectors to take appropriate measures to avoid difficulties during the procurement process as farmers are still bringing their produce to the procurement centres across the State.
“The Collectors and other officials should work in a planned manner to avoid any shortage of lorries and porters. Besides, intermediate warehouses should be identified to store the stock grain,” said the minister.
The minister wants the field officials and staff to inform the farmers and procurement centre managers about the weather conditions in advance so as to avoid damage to the stock grains due to untimely rains. As the grain procurement process will continue for another two weeks, the officials should work with coordination to ensure that the procurement will complete in a smooth manner without leaving any scope of derailment.
It is said that the government will monitor the distribution of fine rice as a great ambition and will ensure that quality rice will be distributed among the poor. It was suggested that the applications for new ration cards and registration of family members should be examined immediately and sanctioned. Strict scrutiny should also be carried out to ensure that bogus cards should not be issued under any circumstances.
Apart from District Collector C Narayana Reddy, Additional Collector Pratima Singh, DRDO PD Srilatha, DSO Civil Supplies DM Gopikrishna, Marketing Department AD Mohammad Riazuddin and other concerned officials participated in this video conference.
