When Telangana went wrong with paddy measure

Hyderabad: Are political bosses trying to shield bureaucrats? Did they mislead the Telangana government on the extent of the cultivation of crops? These questions assume significance with the contradictory data reportedly sent to the Centre regarding the extent of paddy cultivated in the State.

Union Minister for Tourism and Culture G Kishan Reddy claimed that the officials from the Telangana government participated in an all-India meet of the civil supplies officials to finalise the allocation of paddy procurement and had agreed to procurement of about 40 lakh metric tonnes in August 2021.

Later, the Centre received another letter from Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao requesting the Centre to peg the procurement allocation at 90 LMT. Another letter was received by the Centre from the State which pegged the total yields of paddy at 1.8 crore metric tonnes.

Speaking to The Hans India, sources in the government pointed out that "the conflicting data submission to the Centre might be an unintended error". However, the question remains unanswered as to why and who submitted such data.

Another question raised was about the State Government's claims that paddy and cotton - the two main crops in the State - have taken a lion's share in the extent of cultivable land in Telangana.

"If the State data has to be believed the total extent of cultivable land in Telangana is about 1.2 crore acres to 1.4 crore acres. There is even confusion on the total cultivable land in Telangana," said a source.

When contacted, officials in the State Agriculture department were tightlipped and refused to comment on the issue. They only claimed that they had arrived at the extent based on an "eye survey".

While this is so, questions have also been raised over the claims of the per acre yield of paddy. TRS leaders claim that the per-acre yield of paddy is about 35 quintals.

Telangana has outperformed Punjab, and many other paddy cultivating States in the country when it comes to the ratio of per acre yield of paddy. However, it is not uniform across the State. Sources said it varies from 25 to 30 quintals of paddy per acre.

While this being the situation, both the saffron party and the pink party leaders are more busy indulging in protests and counter protests. Such issues can be resolved through talks with the Centre if the Telangana government approaches with real data, said Kishan Reddy.