Uttam Kumar Reddy orders scale-up of paddy procurement amid rain threat

Civil Supplies Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy directed officials to accelerate paddy procurement and protect farmers from unseasonal rains. With crops damaged across districts, the government has ramped up storage, logistics, and monitoring to minimise farmer losses

Hyderabad: As farmers continue to stage protests over delays in procurement, Civil Supplies Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy directed officials to initiate measures to scale up paddy procurement operations. He also asked officials to take steps to protect farmers from untimely rains and losses.

There is a forecast of untimely rains for the rest of the week. Apart from this, heavy showers battered multiple districts on Sunday, wreaking havoc on paddy stocks at harvest centres and market yards.

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The Minister held a video conference with district in-charge Ministers, Collectors, and Civil Supplies officials on Monday. The meeting reviewed the season’s progress, including paddy arrivals and procurement. Officials discussed accelerating procurement, tackling bottlenecks, and protecting farmers from heavy losses caused by unseasonal rains and heatwave conditions across several districts.

Putting the official machinery on high alert, the Minister emphasised the need for vigilant monitoring of weather conditions and ensuring that farmers are promptly informed about rainfall forecasts.

Procurement has so far reached around 14.80 lakh metric tonnes (LMT), with all 8,575 paddy procurement centres (PPCs) fully operational. This includes over 8 lakh metric tonnes of coarse varieties. An amount of over Rs 2,001.96 crore has already been remitted to farmers’ accounts, officials stated.

Stressing that Minimum Support Price (MSP) operations would be crucial this month for achieving the targets set for the Rabi marketing season, the Minister said paddy arrivals were likely to increase in the coming days, making an immediate ramp-up of procurement critical.

He asked officials to focus particularly on high-volume PPCs, especially those in Nalgonda and Nizamabad districts. Unseasonal rains accompanied by strong winds have drenched significant quantities of paddy in several districts, including Nalgonda, Mahabubnagar, and Khammam.

The Nalgonda Collector reported 299 MT of wet paddy across four centres following a sudden 20-minute storm on Sunday evening that blew off tarpaulins despite prior alerts. Similar incidents were reported in Mahabubabad, Suryapet, Khammam, and Kothagudem.

The soaked paddy should be immediately shifted to designated parboiled rice mills using already issued district allocations to salvage the crop. Officials should ensure that tarpaulins are properly used and that stocks are covered before any visible damage occurs, he said.

The Minister directed officials to prepare for continued unseasonal rains over the next three to four days by taking all possible precautionary measures. Intermediate storage capacity of about 16 lakh MT has been arranged across districts as a buffer. The State has also secured parboiled rice allocations (nearly 16.8 lakh MT equivalent so far) and has sought an additional allocation of 15 lakh MT. Gunny bag stocks of 18.5 crore bags (both new and old) have been mobilised, he added.