Hyderabad: Niranjan Reddy launches 23 Vijaya products

Hyderabad: Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy on Monday launched 23 Vijaya products across the State and appealed to people to use them. At a programme at Tourist Plaza, Begumpet, he launched the products with Oilfed Chairman Ramakrishna Reddy and Horticulture MD Venkatram Reddy.

The Minister said the country spends Rs 80,000 crore to import oils required for people. "We import 15 million tonnes of oil as we can produce only seven million tonnes in the country, against the demand of 22 million tones

Reddy asked people to use the Vijaya brand products for purity and quality. "The government encourages oil palm production to increase oil production. The Centre is also giving subsidies for oil palm production and State government will encourage farmers for oil palm farming and production," he said. The State is cultivating oil palm crops n about 48,806 acres and supporting farmers.

The Minister stated that government had already created awareness to farmers and local leaders on palm oil production. "We aim to produce oil palm crops in about eight lakh acres in the State. We have the right to get pure air and food grains and oils and efforts are in that direction by the government." He stated that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had decided to push farmers to grow oil palm and reduce dependency on oil imports.