Telangana pleas to lift paddy falls on deaf ears

Hyderabad: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the recent public meeting in Hyderabad, cried hoarse about the Centre not discriminating against Telangana. Facts, however, speak louder than his claims. The BJP government at the Centre continues to remain passive to the Telangana government’s repeated requests for procurement of about 50.24 lakh tonnes of paddy from the […]

Hyderabad: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the recent public meeting in Hyderabad, cried hoarse about the Centre not discriminating against Telangana. Facts, however, speak louder than his claims. The BJP government at the Centre continues to remain passive to the Telangana government’s repeated requests for procurement of about 50.24 lakh tonnes of paddy from the State, leaving the latter to fend for itself.

Farmers in Telangana took up paddy cultivation in about 52 lakh acres after union Ministers Piyush Goyal and G Kishan Reddy along with the BJP State leaders repeatedly assured that they would ensure ‘purchase every grain of rice produced by farmers. The union government, however, refused to purchase anything but boiled rice citing surplus stocks. Subsequently, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) signed an agreement with the State government for purchase of 40.20 lakh tonnes of raw rice and 2.60 lakh tonnes of fortified boiled rice pertaining to Yasangi (Rabi) season.

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After overcoming various hurdles, the State government procured around 50.24 lakh tonnes of paddy from about 9.42 lakh farmers in the State at an expenditure of Rs 9,834.87 crore. Despite incurring a loss of around Rs 3,000 crore, the paddy procurement was completed successfully through 6,609 procurement centres. The State government had already informed the union government about the paddy procurement and handed over the paddy to the rice millers for milling. Though some rice millers have already milled the rice, there has been no response from the FCI for supply of the rice.

As a result, millers have stopped milling the paddy and are suffering due to lack of adequate storage space to keep the paddy stocks. With monsoon setting in, they recently approached Civil Supplies Minister Gangula Kamalakar seeking help. “We have been repeatedly requesting the FCI authorities to lift the raw rice stocks, but there has been no response. We are hopefull that the Centre will respond to our requests in a couple of weeks. If there is no reply, we will examine and adopt other options,” he added.
A senior official in the Civil Supplies department stated that the State government has about 92 lakh tonnes of paddy stocks from the last two crop seasons after the union government imposed restrictions on rice purchases citing excess stocks. “A lot of rice stock was not lifted by the FCI alleging discrepancies in stock supplies. We have already clarified in some cases and initiated action in other cases as per their request. However, there has been no further communication from them,” he said.

To clear the stocks lying with the rice millers and government godowns, the State government is now examining various options including taking legal course though the State government is not keen on getting into a confrontation mode with the union government unnecessarily and instead, resolve the issue amicably.