HYDERABAD: The State Civil Supplies Corporation is making all efforts to procure gunny bags for the purchase of its bumper paddy crop of over one crore tonne this year. Telangana requires around 20 crore gunny bags, of which 10 crore have been procured. Another 60 lakh-70 lakh bags would be procured from fair price shops. The rest were meant to be supplied by the jute mills of West Bengal.
“We requested the West Bengal government and fair price shop dealers in the State to send used gunny bags too,” Civil Supplies Corporation Chairman M Srinivas Reddy said on Wednesday. He said the government was ready to pay `2 extra per bag, even if they were old, to fair price shop dealers.
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao spoke with his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the supply of gunny bags for Telangana. Rao directed IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao to consider the possibility of starting two jute mills in the State for manufacturing gunny bags.
With the State emerging as the rice bowl of the country, the government is expecting paddy production to cross 1.2 crore tonne. Meanwhile, the Civil Supplies Corporation Chairman said Telangana, so far, provided free rice of 12 kg per person to 74 per cent of white ration cardholders.