30 lakh tonnes of godown space created for paddy: Uttam Reddy

Civil Supplies and Irrigation Minister, N. Uttam Kumar Reddy reviewing paddy procurement at a meeting in Hyderabad on Friday.

Civil Supplies and Irrigation Minister, N. Uttam Kumar Reddy has said that 30 lakh metric tonnes of godown space has been arranged with the State warehousing corporation and the additional cost involved for storage in intermediary godowns and then giving it custom milling will be borne by the government.

The farmers should not be inconvenienced anywhere in the State, he said while addressing the Cabinet Sub-Committee on paddy procurement on Friday. Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka, Ministers Tummala Nageshwar Rao, Sridhar Babu, and Ponnam Prabhakar, Principal Secretary and Civil Supplies Commissioner D.S. Chauhan were among present.

Mr. Reddy said that procurement arrangements in most of the districts had been made and asked the department officials to procure and shift the paddy to intermediary godowns wherever millers were not cooperating. Telangana was expected to achieve a record yield of nearly 150 lakh metric tonnes of paddy, making this year’s procurement process historic in terms of scale, operations, and volume.

The Minister emphasised that the next 10 to 15 days were critical and that farmers should not face distress. The government was prepared to incur additional expenses if required to ensure seamless procurement. He urged millers to cooperate fully in the procurement process as the government had set a low bank guarantee requirement of 10% for CMR paddy which was 100% in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

Mr. Reddy noted that, if necessary, the government might consider dispatching surplus paddy to neighbouring states, such as Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, if the procurement exceeded Telangana’s milling capacity.