HYDERABAD: State Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy on Tuesday, September 7, 2021, requested the Centre to extend the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund to cover agriculture and its allied sectors, including poultry, dairy and fisheries. He was speaking at a virtual meeting held by Union Minister for Agriculture Narendra Singh Tomar and Union Minister for Industries, Commerce, Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goyal. The meeting was attended by chief ministers and ministers from various states as well as departmental heads. Niranjan Reddy also urged the Centre to approve 100 per cent procurement of pulses at minimum support price (MSP) for Yasangi season and also approve distribution of mini kits to cover one lakh acres of groundnut crop.
Thanking the Centre for releasing Rs 703.81 crore under Kisan Samman Nidhi to Telangana farmers, he observed that the Centre’s scheme covered only 35.19 lakh farmers due to certain criteria acting as a barrier for covering all small and marginal farmers, who according to him, formed 91.48 per cent of all farmers in the State.
In view of the State government planning to increase the cultivable area of oil palm to 20 lakh acres by 2024-25 as an alternative to paddy, he requested the Centre’s intervention in reducing the import duty on oil palm seedlings from 30 per cent to five per cent. He also suggested removing the ceiling on subsidies for micro irrigation on cultivable area so that farmers could be encouraged further to take up oil palm cultivation.