Why is Centre not permitting paddy exports: Harish Rao

Accusing the union government of lacking vision on farming, Rao said that it's the Centre's' responsibility to procure and store grains that were enough to feed the country for four long years.

Sangareddy: Finance Minister T Harish Rao has sought to know why the Central government was not permitting paddy exports to foreign countries.

Addressing the gathering after participating in the swearing-in-ceremony of Agriculture Market Committee Patancheru on Saturday, the Minister said the union government is creating confusion among the farmers by making contradictory statements on paddy cultivation in India. While the same government had refused to procure the paddy during the last Yasangi saying that the godowns were full, he said that now they were encouraging farmers to take up paddy cultivation again.

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Accusing the union government of lacking vision on farming, Rao said that it’s the Centre’s responsibility to procure and store grains that were enough to feed the country for four long years. When there were adequate rains, Rao said that the union government must permit the States to export the rice to other nations. During the last Yasangi, he said that the Centre had refused to procure parboiled rice citing the reason that it will have more broken rice, but it did not even allow to export of it. He further said that union Minister Piyush Goel humiliated Telangana and its people by asking them to consume the broken rice.

At a time when the neighbouring China, Bangladesh and other countries were experiencing drought and Pakistan was witnessing heavy floods, the Finance Minister observed that it was high time to permit the export of paddy for the benefit of the farmers. He said that the governments must work to just ensure the farmers get a better price for their produce. He accused the Centre of lacking any vision on farmers’ issues.

With an objective to make farming profitable, Rao said that Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao had built Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS). Explaining how farming changed in Telangana since 2014, he said that the area under paddy cultivation was put at 72 lakh acres before, but the Telangana farmers had cultivated paddy on 65 acres so far. He said that it is expected to go up further. Medak MP Kotha Prabhakar Reddy, MLA Patancheru Gudem Mahipal Reddy, Collector A Sharat and others were present. The Minister has congratulated the new committee former under the Chairmanship of Vijay Kumar.