Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) announced that the state government would procure paddy during the summer season through 6,408 centres in the villages across the state. He added due to the resurgence of COVID-19 cases, it was decided to procure paddy in the villages, as was done last year.
The decision was taken during a review meeting held at Pragati Bhavan on Monday, with official of the agriculture, marketing, and civil supplies departments. KCR instructed principal secretary (finance) K Ramakrishna Rao to make all arrangements to give Rs 20,000 crore bank guarantee by Tuesday evening.
He also asked chief secretary Somesh Kumar to conduct an emergency video-conference with all the collectors for the setting up of the procurement centres. The chief minister then said in 6,408 procurement centres, there are 2,131 IKP centres, 3,964 PACS centres and others are 313. He also asked officials to ensure that farmers get minimum support price (MSP) at the centres and at the same time, and that farmers should ensure that the paddy they are bringing to the centre should have not more than 17 percent moisture.
He said for procuring the paddy, officials should keep 20 crore gunny bags ready at the procurement centres. KCR also added that in the summer season, paddy is cultivated in 52.76 lakh acres, and this time it is expected 1.17 crore MT of the coarse variety paddy and 21 lakh MT of the fine variety paddy.
He also instructed the Kumar to identify lands to be given on lease to the Central Ware Housing Corporation as it was ready to construct additional godown to store the food grains. KCR also instructed the Water Resources Department officials to ensure that Kaleshwaram water is supplied to the lands under the irrigation projects for another 10 days so that the crops would not dry in Suryapet district.