Minister for Civil Supplies Uttam Kumar Reddy holding a video conference on paddy procurement on Saturday.
HYDERABAD
Minister for Civil Supplies N. Uttam Kumar Reddy has asked the officials of the Civil Supplies Corporation to ensure a smooth and flawless paddy procurement exercise across Telangana. Of the 7,572 purchase centres planned to procure nearly 1.5 crore tonnes of grain, 4,598 have already been opened, he said.
In a video conference with District Collectors on Saturday, he told the officials to plan procurement meticulously, as the stocks of grain had already started arriving in large quantities.
Commissioner of the Civil Supplies Corporation D.S. Chauhan, Joint Secretary Priyanka Ala, Director of Agricultural Marketing P. Uday Kumar and others attended.
The Minister said that production was estimated at 150 lakh tonnes this season. Against the requirement of about ₹30,000 crore for the purpose, the State had allocated ₹20,000 crore already.
Untimely rains
In the wake of untimely rains, he instructed officials to equip all procurement centres with the necessary infrastructure to prevent crop loss. “We are authorising District Collectors to take immediate and decisive action. The government will reimburse expenses later, if required,” he said.
Seeking cooperation from millers in expeditious processing, he said it would enable the government to hand over the required custom-milled rice to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) in the time specified. Following a request from millers, the government had increased the milling charges from ₹10 per quintal to ₹50 per quintal for fine varieties (Grade A) of paddy and for common varieties from ₹10 to ₹40, Mr. Uttam Reddy noted.
He said that the government was now moving towards security stocks and for that, a 10% bank guarantee was needed from millers with clean record, while those with a history of default must provide a 20% guarantee.
He told the District Collectors to address issues in procurement, if any, without taking much time in coordination with the Civil Supplies Commissioner. He stated that Collectors would be encouraged to intervene directly and store the procured paddy at intermediary godowns in case there was a delay in lifting/shifting the stocks from procurement centres by millers. Intermediary godowns with a storage capacity of 30 lakh tonnes were kept ready to handle any contingencies.
In case of delays, Collectors could also store paddy in godowns managed by the State Warehousing Corporation and agricultural market committees.
Published – November 02, 2024 08:31 pm IST
