A delegation of TRS MPs and a half-a-dozen Ministers will leave for Delhi on Saturday to meet Union Ministers concerned and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to impress upon them on the need to increase the quantity of Kharif paddy procurement.
The decision was taken at a party meeting chaired by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday. The Ministers of Agriculture, Civil Supplies, Energy, Roads and Building, Transport and Panchayat Raj would go to Delhi along with the MPs.
Giving details to the media after the meeting, Minister for Agriculture Niranjan Reddy along with Minister G. Jagadish Reddy and V. Srinivas Goud and MP K. Keshava Rao said that their visit was necessitated as procurement of Kharif paddy had almost reached the quantity agreed upon by the Centre (Food Corporation of India) this year till Friday and more than half of paddy was yet to be harvested and reach procurement centres.
Mr. Niranjan Reddy stated that the Centre had made it clear that it would no longer procure parboiled rice, which is produced in Telangana during the Rabi season. However, it was also creating problems in the procurement of Kharif paddy after making it clear several times that it had no problems on the quantity of raw rice, which is produced in Kharif season.
He explained that the FCI had agreed to procure 59.6 lakh tonnes of paddy or 40 lakh tonnes of raw rice for 2021-22 Kharif and as of Friday, the procurement of paddy was about 55 lakh tonnes. Stating that paddy was cultivated in 62.13 lakh acres in Kharif, against 58.6 lakh acres as estimated by the Centre, the Minister said production of paddy would be in the range of 1.3 crore tonnes to 1.5 crore tonnes at an yield of 24-25 quintals per acre.
He said that harvesting was yet to be completed, and harvested grain was yet to reach procurement centres. He alleged that Minister Piyush Goyal and other Union Ministers were speaking lies on paddy procurement issue. He also blamed the FCI for not lifting the rice pertaining to the last Rabi season lying in godowns of rice mills.
On alternative crops, the Minister said that groundnut and Bengal gram cultivation had actually crossed 5 lakh acres each. Green gram was also likely to go up as it would be sown in paddy fields after harvesting Kharif crop. He admitted that there was shortage of sunflower seed this season but it would be made available in required quantities from the next Rabi.
