Hyderabad: Caretaker Agriculture Minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy has directed the officials to set up 259 maize purchasing centers across the State. He said the State government had purchased three lakh metric tons of maize last year and the government has targeted this year to purchase five lakh metric tons of maize and asked the officials to take steps in this direction.
The Minister conducted a review meeting at Pragathi Bhavan on purchasing crops through Mark Fed with the officials here on Sunday. He said the officials have to secure required loan through the banks with State government’s surety. He said the government will purchase maize with minimum support price Rs 1,700 though the prices were low in the open market. He also said they urged the NaFed to give permission to purchase lentils and Mung (greengram) and informed that they will purchase them after getting permission from NaFed. He requested the farmers not to sell their crop in a hurry to private businessmen at low price.
Pocharam also advised the officials to take precautionary measures and see that there won’t be any shortage of the seeds for Rabhi season. He directed the officials to provide seed to the farmers. He said the TRS government will take decisions to see that the farmers get support price to their produce. He said the government purchased the farmers’ produce though the government suffered losses, but the farmers got benefited. This year also, following the directions of the caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, the State government was setting up purchasing centers across the State to purchase every grain produced by the farmers.
Agriculture Department Commissioner Rahul Bojja, MarkFed MD M Surender participated in the review meeting.
[source_without_link]NSS[/source_without_link]