Sell red grams at govt procurement centres only, farmers told

Gadwal: The red gram farmers in Jogulamba-Gadwal district have been asked to sell their agriculture produce only at the government procurement centres for better returns.  While opening first red gram procurement centre in Gadwal district, Bhandari Bhaskar, Zilla Parishad Chairman of United Mahbubnagar district said that the State government was giving highest priority to the farming sector and had opened red gram procurement centres across all the major markets in the State.

“We have been told that farmers are selling their red gram produce to private traders for a very low rate. In view of this we have opened a new procurement centre for the first time in Gadwal to benefit the red gram farmers.   I urge the farmers to utilise the red gram procurement centres and sell their produce at the centre and avail the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 5,450 per quintal,” said Bhandari Bhaskar.

According to market officials, the MSP price is given to those farmers whose red gram produce has moisture content less than 12 per cent. However, all those farmers who are intending to sell their produce will have to wait for at least 1 week to get the amount deposited into their account. Because of delay in the payment, the farmers usually prefer to sell their produce to private traders, who cut some amount, and pay them instantly.

While urging the farmers, the ZP Chairman said not to fall prey to the traders as the government was providing them MSP for their hard-earned agriculture produce and advised them to utilise this opportunity. The ZP Chairman also enumerated various initiatives taken up by the government for the welfare of the farming sector in the State.

He said the TRS government is the first government in the country to provide 24-hour free power to the farmers. He also said that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao government had taken the initiative of providing an incentive of Rs 8,000 per acre to each farmer from this Kharif seasons, which is one of the first of its kind initiative taken up by any government in the country for the welfare of the farmers.

Apart from this, Bhaskar also mentioned various other welfare schemes like Kalyana Laxmi, Shaadi Mubarak, Mission Bhagiratha, Mission Kakatiya, opening of Gurukula Schools, providing quality rice to hostel students and various other schemes for the welfare of all sections in the society.