Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao will lead a delegation of Ministers from Telangana to New Delhi on March 21 to mount pressure on the Centre to buy rice procured from farmers in the ongoing rabi. The delegation will meet Union ministers and, if needed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi to press the demand.
The departure of the delegation will be preceded by a meeting of the legislature party of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) the same day to finalise an agitational programme, including a dharna and protest programmes, with the same demand. The TRS MPs in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will also stage protests in both Houses., a release of CMO said.
The Centre had decided not to procure paddy cultivated in Telangana in rabi for reasons of lack of demand for boiled rice in the country. The paddy of rabi went into production of boiled rice because it yields broken rice due to higher temperatures. The Centre claimed the decision not to buy boiled rice from Telangana owed to an understanding already reached with the State government. Later, the State government also announced that it will not set up paddy procurement centres in villages and prohibited seed companies from selling seed to farmers. Yet, the crop was sown in over 35 lakh acres against the season’s normal of 31 lakh acres, despite government’s advisory against it.
Quoting the Chief Minister, the release added that the agitation will highlight the demand of the State government to buy hundred per cent rice cultivated in Telangana during rabi like it was done in Punjab. As it was a matter of ‘do or die’ for farmers, the release asked not only the party legislators but its State committee members, district presidents, Zilla Parishad, District Cooperative Central Bank and District Cooperative Marketing Societies chairmen and Rytu Bandhu leaders to attend the legislature party meeting without fail.
