Hyderabad, may 12: To ensure that farmers would get minimum support price for their produce, the state government on Wednesday appointed 10 senior IAS officers as special officers to oversee procurement of paddy for rabi season. These officials will work in coordination with the district collectors, joint collectors, civil supplies department, Food Corporation of India and railway department to facilitate speedy purchase of paddy and its storage.
The IAS officers who were appointed as special officers include M Subramanyam (East Godavari), Poonam Malakondaiah (West Godavari), BR Meena (Krishna), Hiralal Samariya (Guntur), Anantaramu (Nellore), Vijayanand (Nalgonda), Sandeep Kumar Sultania (Karimnagar), Neerab Kumar Prasad (Khammam), K Chandramouli (Warangal) and L Premachandra Reddy (Nizamabad). Principal secretary for agriculture and marketing K Ratna Kishore will coordinate with various departments and the special officers at the state level.
Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy at a review meeting on Wednesday directed the civil supplies and marketing departments to arrange for tarpaulin covers and gunny bags for storing paddy. Though there is adequate space for storing about 10 lakh tonnes of paddy in addition to another 10 lakh tonnes which will be available from next month, the officials have been asked to use government schools and colleges to store the produce temporarily.
About 140 lakh metric tonnes of paddy was produced during this khariff and rabi seasons. Of this, the government will procure about 40 lakh tonnes from farmers between May and September.
Apart from three lakh tonnes of rice for public distribution in the state, another four to five lakh tonnes of boiled rice is being transported to neighbouring states. “Though the MSP has been fixed at Rs 1,030 per quintal, the government will opt for market intervention to enable farmers to sell their produce at a higher price. About 1,209 paddy purchase centres have been opened across the state and they purchased about 12 lakh tonnes through millers,” civil supplies minister D Sridhar Babu said.
The chief minister also instructed the officials to solve field level problems on a day-to-day basis. He said that the government has already requested the Centre to allot additional rakes for transportation of rice to other states, permit export of 15 lakh tonnes of boiled rice and 10 lakh tonnes of raw rice, and also construct additional godowns with a storage capacity of 10 lakh tonnes.
—Agencies