HYDERABAD: It’s official now. In Kharif, the State government indeed raised paddy in 59 lakh acres, as it had claimed. The Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers’ Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture, in its latest report, confirmed that Telangana raised paddy in 2.374 million hectares (around 59 lakh acres).
As per the report, the department has estimated that the production of paddy in Telangana will be 7.543 million tonnes. The department’s Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre, jointly with State Remote Sensing Centres and State Agriculture Department, carried out a national/state/district-level Kharif rice crop acreage estimation and production forecasting for the year 2021-22 using remote sensing data. The data was collected from June 1 to September 29, 2021.
While releasing the report here on Saturday, State Planning Board vice-chairman B Vinod Kumar demanded that BJP State president Bandi Sanjay Kumar should respond on the issue now. The BJP State chief has been exchanging barbs with Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao over the issue.
Vinod Kumar said the CM had said that farmers had raised paddy in 61 lakh acres in the State, and alleged that Bandi Sanjay lied to the people. The vice-chairman said the Central government’s data confirmed that the figures on paddy cultivation provided by the State government were correct.