Vijayawada: CM Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy urges Centre to allow sale of excess tobacco, waive penalties

Vijayawada : Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has requested the Centre to allow the sale of excess tobacco produced by farmers in the state, without penalties. Noting that the tobacco farmers cannot bear the penalties levied by the Tobacco Board, the Chief Minister recalled that the Mandous cyclone had caused heavy losses to the peasants in the state in 2022. "The Government of India has authorised the Tobacco Board, Guntur to allow the sale of excess flue cured virginia (FCV) tobacco produced by growers in Karnataka without any penalty… it is requested to arrange to issue necessary orders to allow the sale of excess FCV tobacco produced by the registered growers of AP without any penalty," Reddy appealed to Union commerce minister Piyush Goel in a letter shared to the media on Friday.

Mandous cyclone, which struck the southern state in December, 2022 severely damaged the tobacco crop, an important commercial crop grown in the southern light soils (SLS) and southern black soils (SBS) regions of Prakasam, Nellore, Bapatla, Palnadu and Guntur districts.

It is also grown in the northern light soils of East and West Godavari districts, which was destroyed in more than 50 percent of the 53,000 hectareacerage.

Reddy said the farmers were forced to go for replanting and incurred heavy expenditure due to the increased costs.

Considering these hard times, the CM requested the ministry of commerce to treat registered AP FCV tobacco farmers on par with their Karnataka counterparts, who were allowed to sell their excess produce without any penalty.