The State government has decided to supply maize to poultry farmers at a subsidised rate of ₹1,525 per quintal against the minimum support price of ₹1,760 at which the government is procuring the crop from farmers now.
According to an order issued by Secretary (Animal Husbandry, Dairy Development and Fisheries) Anita Rajendra on Saturday, the decision has been taken following a request made by the Telangana State Poultry Federation (TSPF) to supply maize, a principal ingredient of poultry feed, on subsidy to overcome the losses suffered by poultry farmers during the COVID-19 conditions.
In the guidelines issued on the subject, the government has asked the TSPF and Telangana Poultry Breeders Association to identify poultry farmers and the farmers who get the supply were required to make the payment within two months through equated weekly instalments after allocation of maize to them against bank guarantee.
Telangana State Cooperative Marketing Federation (TS-Markfed) has been asked to allocate the required quantity of maize to poultry farmers from the nearest procurement centre. The transportation charges and any other taxes/charges have to be borne by the poultry farmers while loading charges and cost of gunny sacks would be borne by the Markfed.
The Markfed has also been cautioned “against the maize supplied to poultry farmers getting recycled and reaching the procurement centres against under any circumstances”. The government has procured over 5.32 lakh tonnes of maize worth about ₹937 crore. The maize has been procured from over 97,000 farmers at 1,097 procurement centres and the farmers have already been paid over ₹333 crore.
