The row over the procurement of Rabi paddy has resurfaced again in Telangana, with Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao demanding the Union Government to buy the paddy grown in 30 lakh acres.

He said that the State could convince the farmers to reduce the paddy area by 20 lakh acres from 54-55 lakh acres after the last year’s hurdles. “Of this, paddy in about three lakh acres goes for seeds and another 2-2.5 lakhs for farmers own consumption. The government should buy paddy from the remaining 30 lakh acres,” he asserted.

Addressing media after a meeting of party’s senior leaders on Monday, he warned that the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) party would launch a serious agitation across the State if the Union Government refused to buy the paddy. “A delegation of Ministers and party’s Parliament members would go to Delhi on Tuesday and submit a memorandum to Piyush Goyal, the Union Minister for Food and Public Distribution,” he said.

To counter the Union Government’s reluctance to buy parboiled rice, the Chief Minister has contended that it should buy paddy the same way it buys it from farmers in Punjab. (Telangana procures the paddy for the Food Corporation of India through millers. The millers, in order to reduce wastage in milling, boil the paddy, churning out parboiled rice. This rice has limited takers as the country has stocks sufficient for over three years.)

“We don’t know how you would like to mill it. If you want to mill it to get raw rice or mill it to get parboiled rice, that’s your choice. We are not going to do that. The MSP is for paddy and not for rice. You buy it and pay money,” he contended.

Unlike the kharif paddy, paddy grown in the Rabi season turns brittle due to punishing heat in the months of March and April, leading to a higher percentage of broken rice.

National Procurement Policy

Stating that the present procurement policy is faulty, he demanded that the country should have one single National Policy, providing a level-playing field for all States. He said the rights of the farmers should have a Constitutional guarantee and the government should amend the Constitution to ensure it.

Stating that there was a void in the national politics, he said he would discuss with other like-minded leaders in other States to forge a national alliance against the Modi Government. “The Modi Government has failed miserably. Even after eight Budgets, there is no progress seen in any of the sectors. There are about 15 lakh vacancies in the government sector to be filled up,” the TRS President said.

Alleging that the BJP Government was promoting divisive politics, he said what the country needed was development and not hatred.

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