But State struggles with storage capacity
Hyderabad: Paddy procurement in the ongoing kharif marketing season (KMS) has crossed the 60 lakh-metric-tonne (LMT) mark, already surpassing the record of the previous two years. Sources said the civil supplies department was on track to achieve the target of 80 LMT, even though the state has storage space for only 65 LMT of foodgrains.
A total of Rs 14,058 crore has been paid to farmers so far, including a bonus of Rs 926 crore for cultivating fine rice varieties during the season. The state already procured 61.27 LMT of paddy so far, including 31.28 LMT of fine rice and 29.98 LMT of coarse rice, through 8,447 procurement centres across the state.
“The paddy thus procured is being directly shifted to mills for processing. The entire process is going on smoothly and without any hitch,” sources told Deccan Chronicle. The procurement volume has already exceeded that of the entire season in the preceding years, which stood at 54 lakh MT in KMS 2024-25 and 47 lakh MT in KMS 2023-24.
This year, Telangana has cultivated over 148 LMT of paddy across 66.8 lakh acres. Of the targeted 80 LMT procurement by the government, 40 lakh MT will be of fine varieties (sanna biyyam) and 40 lakh MT of coarse (doddu) varieties, together costing about Rs 22,000 crore to support the public distribution system (PDS).
However, the state continues to struggle with storage of grains after receiving them from millers, as the existing godowns cannot accommodate more than 65 LMT. Recently, civil supplies minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy reminded the Centre about the need to increase storage capacity by clearing “accumulated stocks” in FCI godowns.
In a letter addressed to Union minister Pralhad Joshi, Reddy said the storage capacity available with the State Warehousing Corporation (SWC) and the Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) in Telangana was 65 LMT. This, he said, would not support the exponential increase in paddy production in the state year after year.
“There is no commensurate increase in storage capacity, which is causing a major hurdle in the timely completion of CMR (Custom Milled Rice) deliveries. In order to tide over this situation, it is requested to enhance storage capacity by an additional 15 LMT under the Union government’s storage schemes, and to enable the construction of godowns and silos in the state to facilitate timely CMR delivery and smooth MSP operations,” he urged.
