Telangana: Officials asked to set up call centres in every district
Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy holding a review meeting with officials in Hyderabad on Monday
Hyderabad: Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy directed officials to establish call centres in every district to receive complaints and suggestions from the farmers on the procurement of cotton.
The Minister conducted a review meeting with the Marketing and Agriculture Department officials on ensuing cotton procurement process on Monday.
He directed officials to ensure that millers are entered into agreements with the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) and asked the marketing, agriculture, police, transport, fire and the legal metrology departments work in coordination.
He said that the CCI is prepared to open cotton procurement centres in 300 ginning mills and nine market yards in the State. However, he asked to ensure that the cotton stocks brought to the procurement centres is not exposed to the unseasonal rains. Giving details for the minimum support price (MSP) based on the moisturiser levels ranging from 8 to 12 per cent in the cotton. Also, an additional payment over and above the MSP, if the moisturiser levels are between 8 to six per cent.
He asked the officials to ensure that proper permissions are obtained from the legal metrology department and deploy web cameras, fingerprint scanners, moisturiser machines, electronic weighing machines and operators at all the procurement centres.
The agriculture officials and the agriculture extension officers were asked to issue village-wise tokens to the farmers. To ensure that farmers need not wait for days at the procurement centre to sell the cotton stocks. Besides, he asked officials to take up a campaign in big way on the location of procurement centres and quality standards to care awareness among farmers. He asked the District Level Committees headed by the District Collectors to draft action plans for smooth functioning of the procurement process.
Marketing Department Director Lakshmi Bai and Additional Director Ravi Kumar and Joint Director Srinivas and other senior officials were also present.