A day ahead of the grand dharna by ruling TRS in the ongoing tussle between State and Centre over paddy procurement, Chief Minister K. Chandasekhar Rao has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging the Centre to confirm the target of procurement of rice from the State during ensuing rabi.
Mr. Rao also urged the Centre to direct the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to complete the procurement of a balance five lakh tonnes of rice produced in rabi last year and enhance target beyond 40 lakh tonnes for procurement of rice during the ongoing kharif to 90 per cent of the production as done in Punjab.
He blamed the FCI for following policies which created confusion for the State governments and farmers. The confusion was created because the target of procurement was not fixed for entire year in one go and procurement not keeping pace even though the production was increasing year by year.
Therefore, it was becoming difficult for the States to plan an appropriate cropping pattern and explain the same to the farmers. For instance, even though the production of rice in Telangana during 2020-21 was 55.75 lakh tonnes, the procurement was only 32.66 lakh tonnes which was 59 per cent of production. This was less than the 78 per cent procured in kharif of 2019-20. Such wide variations in procurement levels did not allow the State to implement a rational cropping pattern.
To clear these confusions and fix the appropriate target for procurement, Mr. Rao recalled that he had personally met Union Minister for Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goyal on September 25 and 26 and requested that the annual target for procurement be fixed immediately. It was 50 days since the meeting took place but no policy decision was taken and communicated to the State government.
Mr. Rao also highlighted that there was drought and hunger everywhere before the formation of Telangana. Due to enormous increase in irrigation facilities now, the State was not only able to meet its foodgrains requirement but became a huge grain surplus State. The farmers of Telangana were now able to produce for the rest of the country.
