Moves afoot for second phase paddy auction in Telangana

An equal quantity of 25 lakh metric tonnes is likely to go up for auction the same way in the second phase too

Hyderabad: Moves are afoot for the second phase auction of paddy by the State Civil Supplies Corporation. The first phase auction process was completed with the finalization of the financial bids for sale of 25 lots of paddy, each of one lakh tonnes. The highest price fetched was Rs 1,732 per quintal.

An equal quantity of 25 lakh metric tonnes is likely to go up for auction the same way in the second phase too. The corporation is holding over 75 lakh tonnes of paddy procured from the farmers at MSP in the State during the last two marketing seasons.

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Since the Kharif harvest season is round the corner and paddy arrivals in the markets are expected to commence from November next, steps are being taken to overcome the godown space constraints.

The State had witnessed a significant increase in the paddy production over the years. The area under paddy had come down marginally during Kharif this year mainly under the Krishna river projects – the Nagarjunasagar project and the Srisailam reservoir that received no significant inflows so far. But a bumper crop is expected under the Godavari basin projects to make up for the shortfall in the districts such as Nalgonda and Suryapet, known to be major paddy producing districts.

The Department of Food and Public Distribution had given its commitment to purchase 50 lakh tones of rice from the state during the Kharif Marketing season (KMS) 2023-24. In fact the State authorities wanted the centre to scale up its commitment from 44 lakh tonnes purchase last year to 67 lakh metric tonnes. It had agreed to increase it only by only 13.6 per cent over the last year.

Since the Centre had opted for curbs on the export of non basmati varieties, the buyers are responding with lot of caution to the State’s move for auction of the paddy stocks held by it. Added to this, 20 per cent export duty was also imposed on the parboiled rice also.

In view of the mounting pressure from the paddy growing States, the export duty on the parboiled rice is likely to be lifted as scheduled after October 16. Since Telangana is one of the major suppliers of the parboiled rice, it may benefit if the 20 per cent export duty was done away with.