HYDERABAD: The estimated Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) for 2020-21 is Rs 9.5 lakh crore. The GSDP of the State has already crossed Rs 8.66 lakh crore in the current financial year. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced this in the State Assembly on Saturday.
Rao recalled that the GSDP was just Rs 4 lakh crore, when the State was formed in 2014. He said the State’s capital expenditure in 10-year period of Congress rule (2004-2014) was just Rs 59,000 crore. Now, in the last six years, the State’s capital expenditure was Rs 1.6 lakh crore.
The Chief Minister also pointed out that due to 24x7 power supply and construction of massive irrigation projects, the cropped area and paddy production witnessed a quantum jump in the last six years.
In the present Rabi season, paddy was raised in 38.19 lakh acres and total paddy cultivated area is 78 lakh acres in both Kharif and Rabi seasons. In 2014-15, paddy cultivated area was just 12 lakh acres, he recalled.
Paddy production this year would be 225 lakh tonnes (2.25 crore tonnes). "The domestic consumption of paddy alone will be 100 lakh tonnes. The remaining 125 lakh tonnes will be procured by the Food Corporation of India (FCI)," he said. Rao stated that the government will give export permits for rice millers so that farmers would get remunerative price for their crop.
Rao predicted that paddy area would further increase to 88 lakh acres next year. "Farmers may raise paddy in one crore acres shortly, once all the ongoing irrigation projects are completed," he said. "There is a huge demand for fine variety of rice in other states and in international markets," Rao said adding that the government would prepare farmers to raise fine variety of paddy.