The State government is contemplating development of a system wherein the farmers are ensured of support price to most of the agricultural produce by making ‘Rythu Samanvaya Samithis’ purchase the produce and sell it in the market.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has asked the officials concerned, including Marketing Minister T. Harish Rao, to tour States like Maharashtra and Karnataka to study the policies being adopted there to help farmers overcome the uncertainty on income from agriculture due to fluctuations in the market conditions.
At a meeting held here on Friday, he told the officials to conceive a system where the farmers’ councils are helped by the government, even if they suffer losses while disposing of the stocks procured from farmers.
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Market fluctuations
Stating that in spite of having covered under the minimum support price mechanism produce such as paddy, maize, cotton and others were making farmers suffer losses due to market fluctuations, the Chief Minister said the new policy should also cover food, commercial and horticulture (fruit) crops. Apart from introducing a separate budget for agriculture from the coming financial year, allocation would also be made for market stabilisation fund, he noted.
The Chief Minister also stressed the need for the Centre to act liberally while announcing the support price for various crops and felt that MSP for paddy and maize should at least be ₹2,000 per quintal.
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He suggested that it should also consider system of announcing MSP for every crop and said that the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) would raise the matter in Parliament.
Input support
On the investment support scheme planned to be rolled out from the next kharif season, the Chief Minister appointed a Cabinet Sub-Committee headed by Agriculture Minister P. Srinivas Reddy to finalise the modalities of giving the assistance of ₹4,000 per acre. The panel comprising Ministers E. Rajender, T. Harish Rao, T. Nageswara Rao, G. Jagadish Reddy and P. Mahender Reddy would suggest the government whether it should be given directly or through banks and identification of lands under cultivation.
The Chief Minister complimented the officials of agriculture, energy, irrigation, marketing and revenue departments for their efforts to help farming during the last one year.
On the first phase of purification of land records, he said the exercise had found that there were 71,75,096 land accounts (holdings) with 1,42,12,826.17 acres cultivable land.