HYDERABAD: The Centre’s offer under Atma Nirbhar Bharat to fund agriculturerelated projects has come as a major relief to the Telangana government during the pandemic.
The state government requires ₹4,000 crore to construct new warehouses, creating an additional storage capacity of 40 lakh metric tonnes. The Telangana marketing department is studying the modalities of the over ₹3,000 crore loans available under Atma Nirbhar Bharat to fund its godown capacity enhancing project.
“The construction of each warehouse will require ₹4-5 crore, but the central government’s initial loan offer had confined the funding up to ₹2 crore per unit only. But recently the guidelines have been relaxed which is good news for the state government and we are looking to avail the loan which comes at a lower interest rate,” an official in the marketing department said.
Telangana needs additional storage capacity as the cultivation area and agriculture production has gone up tremendously in the state. As on date, the overall storage capacity of godowns in Telangana is 65.4 lakh metric tonnes, including central and state government departments and private agencies. The paddy production alone is over 1 crore metric tonnes per annum.
Faced with the shortage of warehouse storage capacity, the state government has been storing paddy and other agricultural produce in schools and marriage halls too, taking the risk of damage to the agricultural produce due to rains and improper facilities.
Marketing department director G Lakshmi Bai confirmed to TOI that they were looking into the modalities to avail the loan being provided by the central government and the detailed project reports to enhance the storage capacity of agriculture produce in the state by another 40 lakh metric tonnes were also ready.
