HYDERABAD: Telangana Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy announced on Saturday, July 17, 2021, that the Telangana government aimed to cultivate oil palms in 20 lakh acres across Telangana over the next four years. To encourage farmers to cultivate the crop, the government would provide them Rs 36,000 per acre subsidy, enable the digging of pits in their farms under the NREGS, sanction micro-irrigation drip systems and assist them in securing loans from banks.
Addressing farmers virtually on Mana TV transmitted via T-SAT during a programme on ‘Oil Palm Cultivation Extension in Telangana’, he said that the decision was taken by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao to meet the shortfall in the country’s oil production, which is resulting in the import of palm oil amounting to 70,000 tonnes.
The government also wished to offer a profitable alternative to paddy cultivation in the near future, he said. Pointing out that there was a need to grow oil palms in 80 lakh acres across the country, he said that presently it was being done only in 8 lakh acres. Observing that a tonne of oil palm yield was fetching `19,000 and that 15-20 tonne yield could be obtained per acre, he said that researchers had suggested that oil palms grown in the State were high in oil content.