Paddy procurement kickstarted across Telangana

Hyderabad: Much to the delight of farmers, the Telangana government kickstarted the paddy purchases on Friday through the procurement centres established across the State especially in the erstwhile districts of Nizamabad, Nalgonda and Khammam. The officials made arrangements to procure nearly 65 lakh tonnes of paddy during the ensuing Yasangi (Rabi) season. During the Yasangi […]

Hyderabad: Much to the delight of farmers, the Telangana government kickstarted the paddy purchases on Friday through the procurement centres established across the State especially in the erstwhile districts of Nizamabad, Nalgonda and Khammam. The officials made arrangements to procure nearly 65 lakh tonnes of paddy during the ensuing Yasangi (Rabi) season.

During the Yasangi season, paddy cultivation was taken up on 35.84 lakh acres in Telangana, the highest in the country. Paddy production of an estimated 83.83 lakh tonnes is expected.

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Less than 48 hours after Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao assured to purchase the entire paddy crop cultivated in Telangana, nearly 5,000 paddy procurement centres were opened in all the major villages across the State over next a couple of days.

The government is planning to scale up the number of procurement centres to 7,000 by May 10 depending on the demand and the entire paddy procurement process will be completed before June 15 as per schedule. While about 1.6 crore gunny bags are currently available with the State government, tenders will be invited for supply of another eight crore gunny bags on April 25.

Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy kickstarted the paddy procurement in Banswada constituency in Nizamabad, while Minister Puvvada Ajay Kumar launched the purchases in Manchukonda of Raghunadhapalem mandal in Khammam district. Similarly, Ministers and legislators participated in the paddy purchases at the market yards in their respective Assembly constituencies. The paddy is being purchased from farmers upon payment of Minimum Support Price of Rs 1,960 per quintal.

Due to the high temperatures prevailing in the State, a quintal paddy will result in only 33-34 kg of raw rice during Yasangi (Rabi) after milling as against about 65-67 kg of raw rice during Vaanakalam (Kharif) season. Hence, the parboiled method is opted to produce boiled rice of around 65-67 kg on par with Vaanakalam season. However, the Central government refused to purchase parboiled rice despite repeated requests from the State.

Under these circumstances, the State Cabinet on Tuesday decided to procure entire paddy crop produced in Telangana. The State government decided to bear the loss on account of supplying raw rice to the union government during Yasangi season.

Meanwhile, the officials have established 51 checkposts on the inter-State borders to prevent shifting of paddy from neighbouring States to Telangana for sale. The paddy-laden trucks coming from Andhra Pradesh and other neighbouring States, were denied entry into the State on Friday.

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