Telangana hints at shutting down village-level paddy procurement centres

The Telangana government, which had launched village-level paddy procurement last summer, has hinted at closing down these procurement centres from this rabi season.

Telangana Agriculture and Marketing Minister S Niranjan Reddy has asked the officials to tell the farmers well ahead of the rabi marketing season that the State government may not open procurement centres this time.

However, there is no clarity yet on whether the State Government will completely stop the procurement or it is going to stop the procurement at the village level as it did during last summer.

At a recent review meeting, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao said that there was no need for the government to set up procurement centres at the village level. “What we did in the summer was just a one-off gesture to help farmers face the challenges posed by the pandemic.”

Market purchases

“The farmers still can take their produce to the 191 main agricultural marketyards and 72 sub-marketyards in different parts of the State,” a Government official said.

This indicates that the government is not going for procurement by opening purchasing centres. In the summer, the State spent ₹30,000 crore on procuring all the agricultural produce (paddy and maize). It opened village-level procurement centres to help the farmers overcome logistics hurdles during the Covid-19 outbreak.

Farmers’ demand

“The Government should ensure purchase of the produce this rabi season. It can’t wash its hands off the procurement completely,” S Malla Reddy, Vice-President of All-India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), has said.

In the kharif season, the Government so far has procured 60 lakh tonnes of paddy by spending about ₹8,900 crore. During the season, the State expects to produce 1.13 lakh tonnes of paddy as the farmers grew the crop on 54 lakh acres.