Centre ignores deadline, Telangana to buy paddy

[Anta Assamey]

With the 24-hour deadline fixed by Telangana chief minister to the centre to produce entire paddy produced in the state in Rabi season, the Telangana government itself has decided to procure paddy and come to the rescue of farmers.

A decision to this effect was taken at the cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Briefing media later, chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao announced that the state government would open procurement centres in every village and purchase paddy directly from the farmers.

He asked them not to resort to any distress sale of paddy at low prices, as the government would purchase every single grain of paddy at the minimum support price of Rs 1,960 per quintal. The entire government machinery would be geared up to begin the paddy procurement in a day or two.

KCR said the Centre was adopting an anti-farmer stance consistently was refusing to procure paddy, despite repeated requested by him and his council of ministers.

He alleged that the Centre’s actions were indicative of a broader plan to push the entire agriculture sector into the hands of corporates.

He said he would shortly in convening a meeting of intellectuals and political parties to decide the future course of action.

He said in the Kharif a quintal of paddy yields around 64 kgs of rice; but in Rabi, the yield will be only 35 kgs, as there would be more broken rice during milling. All that the Centre had to do was bear this loss caused due to low yield in Rabi season, which was around Rs 3,500 crore.

“But the Centre, which was ready to write off bank loans to the extent of Rs 10 lakh crore of fraudsters sitting in London, was not willing to concede this demand,” he regretted.

He alleged that the RSS and the BJP agenda was to have a strong Centre but weak states.

"They want the states to stand before Delhi with a begging bowl. KCR announced that he would soon conduct a workshop in Hyderabad, which would be attended by agriculturists, intellectuals and legal experts from across the country to work out a strategy to provide Constitutional safeguards for the farmers by declaring a new integrated agriculture policy for the entire country."