HYDERABAD: Civil Supplies Minister Gangula Kamalakar on Wednesday assured that all steps were being taken to prevent outsiders from selling their paddy in Telangana, with the State government starting a dashboard that acts as a liaison between the Agriculture and Civil Supplies departments, in addition to setting up 51 check posts on the State’s borders with Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, AP and Karnataka.
Addressing the media after a multi-departmental review meeting held on paddy procurement for the Rabi season, Kamalakar announced that paddy procurement centres (PPC) would be opened in a phased manner, with the first set of these PPCs to operate from some areas starting Friday.
He said that the agricultural extension officers have accurate information as to the extent of paddy sown and yield expected from every farmer in the village. When a farmer comes to the PPC with paddy, based on the Aadhaar card and the phone number on it, an OTP would be sent for confirmation, so that the farmer’s identity could be verified immediately.
Agreeing that there have been some issues in following FCI norms in sending paddy to the rice mills, Kamalakar assured that this time, the connection between the farmer and the miller which has been resulting in the exploitation of farmers would be snapped and that the farmer would get an OTP within 10 hours after selling the produce and would be paid within seven days.
To prevent any mismanagement in the procurement centres, he said that nodal officers were being stationed at every PPC and rice mill.Kamalakar said that the Civil Supplies corporation would be seeking a Rs 15,000 crore loan from the banks for paddy procurement, which would be completed by the first week of June.
Observing that there are presently 1.06 crore gunny bags available with the civil supplies department, he said that a total of 13,40,00,000 bags would be required for procurement. He said that an order was being placed with the Jute Corporation of India for immediate procurement of 7,50,00,000 bags.
To study how much rice would come out broken during the milling, he said that a technical committee would study the issue and test milling would be done across the state. Estimating that production of 65 lakh tonnes of paddy this season, Kamalakar said that a letter was being sent to the Food Corporation of India communicating the same.
Paddy from other states not allowed
Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar directed officials of the Police and Transport departments to ensure that the paddy from neighbouring states does not enter Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, after
the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday had asked the officials to initiate steps on a war footing basis and ensure that the entire district official machinery is geared up to purchase the paddy.