Telangana cotton yields to go up: Minister S Niranjan Reddy

Hyderabad: State Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy asked the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) and the ginning mills to extend their cooperation in the procurement of cotton in the State.

Addressing a joint meeting of the CCI and ginning mills here on Friday, he said that farmers in the State are cultivating cotton to an extent of 58.69 lakh acres during the current rainy agriculture season.

The yields are expected more during the current season and the CCI had lifted nearly 21 lakh metric tonnes of cotton during 2019-20 valued Rs 11,749 crore, he pointed.

CCI Managing Director Pradeep Kumar Agarwal assured the minister to procure the entire cotton output from the State at the rate of support price, as the CCI had done last year.

The minister also asked for declaring all the 314 ginning mills in the State as cotton procurement centres and said that the CCI should take up the issue of GST problem faced by these mills and resolve the same. Besides, he asked to move the existing cotton stock in the godowns to make space for the newly procured cotton stocks. The minister also asked the officials to create awareness among the farmers on maintaining the 8 to 12 per cent of the moisture levels prescribed by the CCI.

Niranjan Reddy also assured to the representative of the ginning mills that their problems will be placed before Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao to take a decision and address them. Besides, he assured to try for the phase-wise release of the Industrial incentives promised for the ginning mills by CM KCR.