The Telangana government, like last year, has decided to procure paddy from farmers in the state. A high-level meeting was held on Monday in which it was decided that the state government would procure paddy from the farmers during the summer season. Ministers and top officials of the Agriculture, Marketing and Civil Supplies departments attended the meeting. Last year as well, the government had decided to procure paddy from the farmers. The decision was taken in view of the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government had decided to set up 6,408 centres across the state to facilitate the procurement. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao instructed Ramakrishna Rao, Principal Secretary (Finance), to make all arrangements to give a Rs 20,000 crore bank guarantee by Tuesday evening. He also instructed Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar to conduct an emergency videoconference with all the Collectors for the setting up of the procurement centres. The CM also asked Minister Sri Niranjan Reddy to be in Hyderabad and monitor the setting up of the centres and procurement of the Paddy.
The CM instructed that Minimum Support Price (MSP) conditions should be implemented and ensured while farmers bring their paddy to the centres. The CM wanted the farmers to ensure that the paddy they are bringing to the centre should have not more than 17% moisture. The farmers should ensure that the moisture percentage is less and they should follow conditions of the MSP. The CM has also instructed the officials to keep 20 crore gunny bags ready at the procurement centres.
The procurement centres will comprise 2,131 Indira Kranthi Patham (IKP) centres, 3,964 Primary Agriculture Cooperative Society (PACS) centres and 313 others.
In December last year, the government had said that it will not be able to set up procurement centres in villages. It said the procurement was taken up during the pandemic last year on a humanitarian consideration that farmers should not suffer losses. However, with cases rising again, the state government has decided to set up the centres this agricultural season as well.
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