‘Centre blaming Telangana for its inefficiency to lift rice’

Hyderabad: Rubbishing the allegations of Union Food and Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal over Telangana’s failure to deliver Custom Milled Rice (CMR) as per schedule, Telangana State Civil Supplies Corporation Chairman Mareddy Srinivas Reddy said the Central government was trying to blame the State government for its inefficiency to procure, transport and store rice from […]

Hyderabad: Rubbishing the allegations of Union Food and Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal over Telangana’s failure to deliver Custom Milled Rice (CMR) as per schedule, Telangana State Civil Supplies Corporation Chairman Mareddy Srinivas Reddy said the Central government was trying to blame the State government for its inefficiency to procure, transport and store rice from Telangana. He said about 720 lorries were waiting at the godowns of Food Corporation of India in the State for unloading CMR, but the FCI officials were refusing claiming lack of storage space.

Speaking to mediapersons here on Monday, Srinivas Reddy said FCI had utterly failed to provide storage space for rice and rakes for its transportation as well as halting milling in the name of physical verification. “The FCI is trying to create problems for the State government at various levels which in turn is delaying handing over the CMR to the Centre as per schedule. For physical verification in a district, milling is being halted in the entire State. In the last two months, milling was stopped for 23 days and 16 days respectively which delayed the schedule for handing over rice,” he said.

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He stated that the Centre had further reduced the time period for handing over the CMR from 13 months in 2018-19 to 12 months in 2019-20 when the paddy procurement increased from 37 lakh tonnes to 64 lakh tonnes respectively. Citing shortage of Hamalis and increased paddy cultivation by 73 per cent during the lockdown, he said despite repeated requests, the Centre did not extend the delivery dates and the State was left with about one lakh tonnes in Yasangi 2019-20.

“The Central government as well as FCI are not extending necessary support to the State government for timely deliver of CMR. On Monday, we have 720 lorries waiting unloading rice in 11 districts due to lack of storage space,” the corporation chairman said. He stated that against 1,476 rakes used for transporting rice by November ending last year, the authorities were able to arrange only 1,096 rakes till date this year notwithstanding the increased paddy cultivation. He said the Union government had failed to respond and arrange for gunny bags even after taking up the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He said the State government had procured 34 lakh tonnes of paddy worth Rs 6,392 crore from more than 6 lakh farmers till date, as against 26.96 lakh tonnes paddy as on date last year. He stated that paddy procurement has been expedited and about one lakh tonnes are being purchased everyday.

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