40 per cent of paddy is still in procurement centres: Harish Rao

Harish said since the IMD was predicting rain soon in the State, the government must speed up the procurement.

Siddipet: Former Minister T Harish Rao has said 40 per cent of paddy was still in procurement centres in Siddipet district. He said he had interacted with the farmers at a paddy procurement centre in Chinna Koduru on Wednesday and said the farmers have been waiting with paddy for over 20 days as the procurement was delayed.

Speaking to reporters, he said since the IMD was predicting rain soon in the State, the government must speed up the procurement.

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As the paddy sprouted due to untimely rains, Rao has said the rice mill owners were deducting three KGs per bag. He further demanded that the government buy sprouted paddy without any loss to farmers.

Harish Rao asked the officials to requisition more lorries to speed up the procurement in view of the fast approaching southwest monsoon.

He said the Congress government failed to keep the promise of giving Rs 500 bonus per quintal, and restricted it to only for fine rice varieties.

When enquired about about the bonus declared by the government, farmers told him that they were growing the fine rice varieties only for home consumption.

During the last Yasangi, he said the farmers cultivated fine rice varieties in less than 10,000 acres out of 3.38 lakh acres of paddy cultivated in the district which constituted just five per cent.

He charged that the government failed to supply sufficient seeds leading to a chaos at Agro Seva Kendras where farmers were forced to stand in serpentine queues.