The State government has constituted an internal monitoring committee of the Horticulture and Marketing department to ensure timely and required transport and supplies of vegetables and fruits in an attempt to prevent traders from jacking up prices by creating artificial scarcity.
According to Secretary (Agriculture) B. Janardhan Reddy, the committee would monitor both arrivals and prices of vegetables and fruits not only in Hyderabad but also in districts. The Horticulture and Marketing departments have been tasked to ensure mobility and arrivals of fresh vegetables and seasonal fruits to local ‘mandis’ and rythu bazaars in coordination with the local administration.
The committee would take up daily assessment of vegetable requirement, particularly in the urban areas, frequent assessment of standing crop-wise production details of vegetables and fruits and would work out future plan for increasing the area under vegetables to overcome the shortage. District Horticulture officers have been told to keep vigorous watch on the production, arrivals and transport of vegetables and fruits and also keep an eye on their prices.
Further, the DHOs have been instructed to motivate farmers to promote the cultivation of vegetables in districts to meet internal consumption first. Movement of vegetables and fruits by traders would be permitted at check-posts, based on needs. A special team has been put in place for GHMC area to monitor arrivals of the perishable food crops.
Stating that the harvesting season of seed crops, from February to May, was in progress Mr. Janardhan Reddy said harvesting, post-harvesting and shipment of raw seed and packing activities of all seed crops was in peak stage now across all seed-producing States — Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh — the movement of seed to Hyderabad for further handling had to be ensured.
He noted that shifting of about 6.21 lakh tonnes of corn cobs and the raw seed of major crops was in progress both to Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana for testing, processing, grading, packing and dispatching to processing plants and storage since more than 70% of the country’s seed requirements were met from Telangana after completing all back-end processes.
Steps were also being taken to ensure the supply of fertilizers across the State by issuing necessary instructions to all the stakeholders, Mr. Janardhan Reddy stated.
