Another paddy war on cards
Hyderabad: The Telangana government is all set to lock horns with the Centre once again. The refusal of the Centre to buy raw rice from the millers has upset the state government. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has asked the officials for a detailed report on the status of paddy procurement in the state.
According to the officials, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) halted procurement of rice two weeks back on the grounds that there was a mismatch in the procurement and supply of rice from the state government to the FCI during the last two seasons. FCI officials said several complaints were received saying that nearly 4.50 lakh paddy bags have gone missing in the last two agricultural seasons. "A shortage of 1.96 lakh bags of paddy was detected in 2020-2021, and 2.57 lakh bags in 2021-2022 Kharif season. About 40 rice mills were allegedly involved in the missing of paddy bags," they said.
The FCI officials visited the stock points in the rice mills which were permitted for custom milling and found irregularities. Taking serious view of this, the Central authorities stopped the procurement process. As a result, rice stocks were piling up in the mills and paddy stocks in the market yards. Nearly, 30 lakh metric tonnes of paddy were yet to be disposed of.
Officials of the State Civil Supplies Department said the Centre also stopped releasing Rs 19,000 crore to Telangana to pay the farmers from whom paddy was procured during the Rabi season. As millers stopped milling, lakhs of workers went jobless. On the other hand, farmers were facing challenges to continue with the farming activities during this Kharif season which has just begun due to non- release of funds.
Meanwhile, State Finance minister T Harish Rao and Civil Supplies Minister G Kamalakar held a meeting with the officials, attended by Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, on paddy procurement at the Secretariat on Friday. The officials were busy preparing an alternative mechanism to address the paddy procurement issues at the earliest.