The Hindu Business Line : Reddy fiat to officials on fertilisers

Hyderabad, Oct. 17 The Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, directed officials to make available sufficient stocks of fertilisers and ensure its smooth distribution to needy farmers across the State.

During a review meeting on agriculture-related issues on Friday, the Chief Minister was informed that as against normal sowing of 79.02 lakh hectares, 79.19 lakh ha was sown during this kharif.

“Except Kadapa, Prakasam and Nellore, other districts have crossed the normal area of sowings due to more than average rainfall that the State received. Also, Rs 73 crore was released towards input subsidy against the actual requirement of Rs 83.60 crore,” the Chief Minister was informed.

Noting that groundnut production has fallen drastically to 4 lakh tonnes this year, against 20 lakh tonnes recorded last year, Dr Reddy directed the officials to take up crop cutting experiments transparently by involving farmers and local peoples’ representatives, a release from the Chief Minister’s Office said.

The release also said that soyabean and cotton sowing increased due to increase in area of coverage this year. Soyabean production is expected to be around 2.57 lakh tonnes as against 1.72 lakh tonnes recorded last year and 13.45 lakh tonnes of cotton production is expected as against 11.34 lakh tonnes last year, officials said.

Seed Availability

Regarding seeds, officials said that there are sufficient stocks available except for sunflower.

“Generally 90,000 quintals of sunflower seed production takes place in the State and requirement is 19,000 quintals. But, due to untimely rains in March this year, sunflower crop was damaged to a large extent and as a result only 10,000 quintals of seed was produced,” it said.

It added that in view of its non-availability in other parts of the country, it was decided to import 1,000 tonnes of sunflower seed from Syngenta Company of France.

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