Minister for Agriculture S. Niranjan Reddy has assured the redgram farmers not to worry about sale of their produce and not go for distress sale as the State government would purchase it at the minimum support price of ₹5,800 per quintal by sparing ₹200 crore for the purpose.
He stated here on Monday that repeated requests by the State government to the Centre to increase the redgram procurement quota of 47,500 tonnes in Telangana under the price support scheme at MSP by the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (Nafed) had fallen on deaf ears. “Surely, it’s not the way to achieve the goal of doubling the farmers’ income by 2022 set by the Centre as the production of the pulse crop is estimated to be about 2.3 lakh tonnes this year,” the Minister said speaking to reporters here.
The Minister cautioned the officials against colluding with traders or brokers who bring the commodity to procurement centres illegally. He also wanted the officials to improve vigilance in the State borders with Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh to prevent flow of the produce to the markets and procurement centres in Telangana.
With the help of good monsoon season and increased irrigation with the diversion of Godavari and Krishna waters, cultivation of crops in the kharif season was taken up in about 46.65 lakh hectares, including cotton in 19.9 lakh ha, paddy in 13.63 lakh ha and redgram in 2.86 lakh ha, the Minister said adding that both paddy and cotton were being procured till the last quantity of produce with the farmers.
Mr. Niranjan Reddy also criticised the Centre for neglecting the Telangana’s plea for establishing a turmeric board in the State as export of the raw and processed crop would bring in foreign exchange. He thanked the farming community for standing behind Telangana Rashtra Samithi in the cooperative elections.
