Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Monday announced that the state government would directly procure foodgrains at minimum support price (MSP) from farmers by setting up 6,408 procurement centres in villages for the ongoing Yasangi season, as was done last year.
Rao said the decision was taken in view of the increase in Coronavirus cases in the state. The Chief Minister held a high-level review meeting at Pragati Bhavan here to discuss on agriculture, marketing, and civil supplies departments. Ministers and senior officials were present. He advised principal secretary (finance) Ramakrishna Rao to take steps for giving a Rs 20,000-crore bank guarantee to the Civil Supplies Corporation to procure foodgrains and make payments to farmers.
The CM asked Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar to conduct a videoconference with collectors for the setting up of the procurement centres. He advised agriculture minister S. Niranjan Reddy to be in Hyderabad and monitor the setting up of these centres as also the procurement of paddy. The minister was also told to take all precautions so that farmers are not put to any difficulty while the paddy is procured.
Chandrashekar Rao said that in 6,408 procurement centres, there will be 2,131 Indira Kranti Patham (IKP) centres, 3,964 PACS (primary agricultural cooperative society) centres and 313 others. The CM said MSP should be implemented and ensured while farmers bring their paddy to the centres.
The CM wanted the farmers to ensure that the paddy they are bringing in to the centres should not have more than 17 per cent moisture. The farmers should ensure that the moisture percentage is less and they should follow MSP conditions.
The CM asked officials to keep ready 20 crore gunny bags at the procurement centres. He said that cotton produced in the state fetches a better price in the international market because of better quality. The yield is also high. So, in the coming monsoon season, farmers should grow cotton in about 75 to 80 lakh acres.
The CM asked principal secretary (agriculture) Janardhan Reddy to make arrangements for the procurement of cotton seed to supply to farmers who intend to grow cotton.
In a similar way, arrangements should also be made to cultivate red gram in some 20 to 25 lakh acres. If cotton and red gram crops are given water as required, the yield would be more, he said.
The CM said in the summer (Yasangi) season, paddy was cultivated on 52.76 lakh acres, and the yield could be 1.17 crore metric tonne of the coarse variety paddy and 21 lakh metric tonne of fine variety paddy.
The CM advised the chief secretary to identify lands to be given on lease to the Central Warehousing Corporation that is ready to construct additional godowns to store food grains.
The CM advised the water resources department officials to ensure that water is supplied to lands under the irrigation projects for another 10 days so that the crops would not dry. He said farmers from Suryapet district are complaining that tail end lands are not getting water. Officials should ensure that water is supplied to such lands and not even a single acre should be dry up due to lack of water.
The CM also asked officials over phone to supply water from the Kaleshwaram project to tail-end lands in Suryapet district under the jurisdiction of Lower Manair Dam upto DBM-71.
