Maize will be purchased by govt at MSP: CM KCR

The Chief Minister urged farmers not to cultivate maize in the upcoming Yasangi season under any circumstances.

Hyderabad: Coming to the rescue of maize farmers yet again, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced that maize will be purchased at Minimum Support Price (MSP) of Rs 1,850 per quintal for the current Vaanakalam season. The maize will be purchased by the Telangana State Marketing Federation (TS MarkFed) through the purchase centres established in the villages for the paddy procurement.

However, the Chief Minister urged farmers not to cultivate maize in the upcoming Yasangi season under any circumstances. He said if farmers do not heed to the repeated advice, the State government will not be responsible for their loss in future. He reiterated that the government was not in a position to purchase maize cultivated in the Yasangi season. He reiterated that the BJP-led Central government was to be blamed for drop in maize prices after it has decided to reduce the import duty from 50 per cent to just 15 per cent. He urged farmers not to fall for the cheap politics of the BJP leadership which was responsible for the crisis and was now criticising the State government for political mileage.

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Chandrashekhar Rao who held a review meeting on the estimated crop yield during Vaanakalam (Kharif) season at Pragathi Bhavan on Friday, expressed disappointment over some farmers cultivating maize in the monsoon season despite repeated advice from the State government against it, stating that they will suffer losses as maize was not in a poistion to get MSP in the market. He pointed out that the State government was not responsible to purchase maize as farmers went against its advice. However, he stated that the State government was ready to bear the losses which will otherwise affect farmers severely.

The Chief Minister stated that the MarkFed purchased nine lakh tonnes at an expenditure of total Rs 1,668 crore during the recent Yasangi season. “But the maize had no demand in the open market across the country and the entire yield was sold for only Rs 823 crore through open auction, incurring Rs 845 crore loss for TS MarkFed,” he said. Further, he explained that though the maize was purchased at Rs 1,760 per quintal, the final cost incurred for the MarkFed was Rs 2,000 per quintal due to procurement and transportation charges. As the crop fetched only Rs 1,150 per quintal, the MarkFed suffered loss of Rs 850 per quintal.

Observing this, the State government urged farmers not to culivate maize during the monsoon season. Instead, it was suggested that maize can be cultivated as inter crop along with turmeric in Nizamabad, Nirmal, Jagtial and Mahabubabad and other districts. However, some farmers did not pay heed to the advice given by the State government or the agriculture officers and cultivated the maize. Since there is no good price for the maize, they are on the brink of incurring losses.

“But the Telangana State is known in the country as the only State, which is implementing several pro-farmer, pro-agriculture polices and schemes. Hence, we have decided to buy the maize,” the Chief Minsiter explained.

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