HYDERABAD: Agriculture Minister Thummala Nageswara Rao urged Union Textile Minister Giriraj Singh to initiate measures to procure cotton in Telangana through Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) from October 1.
On Monday, the state minister wrote a letter to the Union minister in this regard.
He explained that in the ongoing season, cotton was cultivated in around 43.29 lakh acres and 24.7 lakh metric tonnes of cotton is estimated to be produced in the state.
“Though the CCI has invited tenders, ginning mills have not participated. With this, the procurement has been stopped. Now, the market rate of cotton in the state is at Rs 6,700 per quintal, while the minimum support price (MSP) is Rs 8,110 per quintal. In this situation, the farmers may do a distress sale,” he said in his letter.
Meanwhile, Nageswara Rao instructed the Marketing department officials to form local monitoring committees to ensure smooth procurement [process at all centres.