HYDERABAD: Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goyal has given an appointment for Thursday to the TRS delegation to discuss the issue of procurement of rice from Telangana.
The delegation, comprising Ministers and MPs from Telangana, called on Goyal on Wednesday and wanted to discuss the rice procurement issue with the Minister. However, the Union Minister said that he would fix the time as per his convenience. Later, the Union Minister informed the TRS delegation to meet him on Thursday at 11.40 am.
The delegation, led by Agriculture Minister Singireddy Niranjan, is in Delhi to impress upon the Centre to procure the entire Rabi rice produced in Telangana, as done in Punjab.Incidentally, during a press conference on exports on Wednesday, Goyal was asked about procurement of rice from Telangana, but the Union Minister ducked the question saying that the presser was about exports.
The reporter then asked about the possibility of exporting rice from Telangana, to which Goyal said: “There is a huge potential of exporting rice from Telangana. There are significant exports of rice from Telangana in the previous years”.
Meanwhile, in written answers to questions asked by Sumalatha Ambareesh and Rajdeep Roy on paddy procurement, Goyal and MoS for Civil Supplies Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti replied: “Procurement in a St-ate depends not only on production but also on other multiple factors like marketable surplus, MSP, prevailing market rate, demand and supply and participation of private traders etc”.