Telangana: Poultry industry refutes media reports alleging poultry fodder scam

Industry bodies Telangana Poultry Federation, Telangana Poultry Breeders Association refuted reports in certain sections of the media alleging a Rs 1,000 cr scam in the maize supplied to poultry sector.

Hyderabad: Industry bodies Telangana Poultry Federation and Telangana Poultry Breeders Association on Monday refuted reports in certain sections of the media alleging a Rs.1,000 crore scam in the maize supplied to the poultry sector.

At a press meet here on Monday, industry representatives said the total maize supplies done by the Telangana Government to the poultry sector in three years was about eight lakh tonne and was worth Rs 1,162 crore. “It is untrue to say that a Rs 1,000 crore scam happened in the poultry feed distribution. We reiterate that the total value of the maize received was Rs 1,162 crore,” said Kasarla Mohan Reddy, General Secretary of Telangana Poultry Federation.

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In 2019, the TS Government through Markfed arranged 1.94 lakh tonnes of maize in the first phase at a price of Rs 12,000 per tonne, 2.09 lakh tonnes in the second phase (at a price of Rs 14,000 per tonne) and the remaining four lakh tonnes in the last phase (at Rs 18,000 per tonne). The media report alleged that central investigating agencies were said to be examining complaints of an alleged poultry fodder scam worth over Rs 1,000 crore involving big wigs in the poultry sector, including Dr G Ranjith Reddy, the TRS Lok Sabha member from Chevella.

Telangana Government on multiple occasions had positively responded to the pleas of the ailing poultry industry and supplied maize to be used in the feed.

“The given maize is distributed 50-50 between the layers and broilers farmers. We arrived at the quantity of maize the farmers get by dividing the total maize available by the number of birds. Small farmers with about 500 birds were also included. Farmers got maize proportionate to the total birds they had. The release orders given to the farmers are signed by the federations. They showed that to Markfed to get the volume as specified,” he explained.

The poultry farmers, in addition to paying the prices as fixed for the maize, had made purchases on an as-is basis by bearing the expenses relating to transport, loading and unloading, hamali, gunny bags and others.