Paddy procurement picking up pace in Telangana

Hyderabad: Procurement of paddy crop for Yasangi season, is progressing smoothly across the State. Around 4.61 lakh tonnes of paddy procured from 61,300 farmers through 3,679 paddy procurement centres. Nearly 4.3 lakh tonnes of paddy has been already shifted to the millers for milling.

As the harvesting has not commenced in the districts of Warangal, Jogulamba Gadwal, Wanaparthy, Jayashankar Bhupalpally and Nagarkurnool, paddy procurement centres were not set up in these districts. They will be established soon after harvesting begins in these districts, while all other districts have adequate number of procurement centres opened.

Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar who took stock of the situation with the Civil Supplies department officials on Thursday, directed them to upload the details of paddy procured on the same day to facilitate payments of the due amount to the farmers at the earliest. The State government has already mobilised Rs 5,000 crore for the purpose.

About 7.8 crore gunny bags are available with the Telangana State Civil Supplies Corporation which is adequate to procure upto 31 lakh tonnes of paddy. Tenders to procure another eight crore bags will be finalised soon. In addition, the Jute Corporation of India assured to supply 2.5 crore gunny bags shortly.

Around 51 checkposts have been established in 17 bordering districts of the State to ensure that paddy was not smuggled by the middlemen from other States to the paddy procurement centres.
Civil Supplies Commissioner Anil Kumar and other officials participated in the meeting.