Cabinet sub-committee ready with its report on paddy procurement, says Telangana Civil Supplies Minister Uttam

Civil Supplies and Irrigation Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy at a meeting on paddy procurement. Minister D. Sridhar Babu and TPCC president Mahesh Kumar Goud were also present.
| Photo Credit: By Arrangement

The Cabinet sub-committee on paddy procurement is set to submit its report to Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on Thursday (October 24,2 204), with recommendations related to procurement for Kharif season. These would be discussed at a Cabinet meeting scheduled for October 26.

Civil Supplies and Irrigation Minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy revealed this on Wednesday (October 23, 2024), after chairing a meeting with public representatives from Nizamabad district.

The meeting was attended by Industries Minister and Cabinet Sub-Committee member D. Sridhar Babu, Government Whip Lakshman Kumar, Advisors to the Government Pocharam Srinivas Reddy and Mohammed Ali Shabbir, MLC and TPCC president B Mahesh Kumar Goud, MLAs B Sudarshan Reddy and Laxmikantha Rao, MLC Balmoori Venkat, Principal Secretary and Commissioner of Civil Supplies D.S. Chauhan, Civil Supplies Director Prasad, and other senior officials.

The Cabinet panel, chaired by Deputy CM Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, has been tasked with studying and making recommendations on a range of paddy procurement issues, including bank guarantee or security deposit from millers, milling charges, and cost of upgrading fine rice for distribution, among others.

The Minister said that input received from various districts indicates that paddy has been cultivated in 60.73 lakh acres of land, with an estimated production of 146.70 Lakh Metric Tonnes (LMT) of paddy. The expected procurement volume stands at 80 LMTs, which includes 30 LMTs of coarse paddy and 50 LMTs of fine rice paddy.

This season, government’s flagship initiative to provide an additional benefit of ₹500 per quintal for ‘sannarakam’ paddy will be implemented. The additional ₹500 will be directly credited to the accounts of farmers selling ‘sannarakam’ paddy at PPCs via the Finance Department’s e-Kuber platform.

Out of a total of 7,248 Paddy Procurement Centres (PPCs), 2,539 are already operational, he said, adding that paddy procurement has already started in Nalgonda and Yadadri.