VIJAYAWADA: Civil Supplies Minister Nadendla Manohar has announced that wheat, ragi and atta would be supplied to all the ration card holders from January across the state, following additional allocations approved by the Centre.
The Minister, along with Civil Supplies Commissioner Saurabh Gaur, met Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Prahlad Joshi in New Delhi to discuss paddy procurement, foodgrain distribution and support measures for farmers in Andhra Pradesh.
He said the Centre has allotted a paddy procurement target of 51 lakh metric tonnes to Andhra Pradesh for the 2025-26 Kharif season. The Andhra Pradesh Civil Supplies Corporation procured 17.37 lakh metric tonnes of paddy from 2.69 lakh farmers within 25 days, with daily procurement reaching 90,000 metric tonnes, he said.
Manohar said procurement is being carried out smoothly in coordination with the Revenue and Agriculture departments and that payments are being credited to farmers’ bank accounts within 24 hours. To ensure seamless operations, 7.87 crore gunny bags have been arranged and supplied to farmers.
He said the State has delivered 96,000 metric tonnes of 10 per cent broken rice over the past 15 days, while all rice mills are operating at full capacity to meet delivery timelines. Praising Andhra Pradesh, Prahlad Joshi said it is the only State ensuring consistent and timely Custom Milled Rice (CMR) deliveries. He also approved the creation of additional storage space through the Food Corporation of India to facilitate smooth CMR movement.
The Minister noted that ragi distribution under the Public Distribution System was already initiated from August 2025 in north coastal districts, covering 16,000 metric tonnes. He said additional wheat and ragi allocations have been agreed to from January.
Highlighting reforms, Manohar said Andhra Pradesh has become the first State in the country to implement a QR code based bag tracking system under the Mid-Day Meal scheme, enabling complete traceability from farmers to godowns. A similar QR code system will be introduced for PDS rice from January.
He urged farmers not to sell paddy to middlemend.
Manohar clarified that Pawan Kalyan had made the remarks only while interacting with farmers and not with any deliberate or malicious intent. He said the comments were taken out of context and projected in a misleading manner.
The Minister said Pawan Kalyan has great trust, respect and affection for the people of Telangana and has, on several occasions, spoken highly of them. He reiterated that the remarks were not intended to hurt the sentiments of any section.