Yasangi Procurement: No Restrictions on Farmers in Selling Their Produce, Says Uttam

Hyderabad:Civil supplies minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy clarified that there were no restrictions to farmers and, regardless of targets. they may sell their paddy produce as the state government was ready to buy without any limits. He said Telangana had procured 60 lakh metric tonnes of paddy, accounting for 60 per cent of the country's total yasangi procurement.

He was addressing a press conference along with ministers, Tummala Nageswara Rao, Ponnam Prabhakar and Mohammed Azharuddin, MPs and senior officials.

Reddy said unlike the previous BRS government, whose inefficiency led to distress sales of 117.83 LMT and a loss of Rs 23,566 crore for farmers, the Congress government had actually procured more grains than the Centre’s targets. Uttam Kumar Reddy said that in comparison, AP had procured 24 LMT, Tamil Nadu 11-12 LMT, Maharshtra 3 LMT, and Kerala nearly 2 LMT.

“We have procured 128.17 LMT against the Union government’s target of 105.2 LMT in 2024-25 and 146.86 LMT against the target of 112.24 LMT in 2025-26. The MSP paid to farmers was more than three times of that paid during the BRS regime. During these two years we have paid `98,600 crore, in contrast to `1.35 lakh crores during ten years of BRS rule,” he explained.

“By the time procurement concludes, Telangana is expected to account for nearly 75 per cent of the country's total yasangi paddy procurement. We are far ahead of every other state in paddy procurement. We are also the number one state in supplying rice to the Food Corporation of India under the Central pool mechanism," he added.

Expressing concern over the Centre's procurement policy, Reddy said Telangana's paddy production has been increasing steadily year after year since the Congress government assumed office.

He said that the Union government’s target for Telangana got shrunk, while production was growing. “Production grew by more than 28 per cent, but the Union government cut the target by 35 per cent from 79 LMT to 51 LMT. Telangana gets the lowest Union government target, only 38 per cent, despite being India’s top Rabi procurement state,” he explained.

Nageswara Rao and Prabhakar strongly criticised BJP and BRS leaders for what they described as these parties’ ‘politically motivated campaign’ over paddy procurement, asserting that the ongoing procurement drive was unparalleled in Telangana's history both in scale and execution.