TRS quells opposition worry of dwindling urea stocks

Hyderabad: The legislators of Congress and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi differed with each other over the availability of urea stocks in the State on the last day of the Assembly session, which was adjourned sine die due to the prevailing covid situation. Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy went on to assure the House and its members by stating that they can contact him if there was any shortage of urea in their constituencies and he would ensure urea stocks reach their places within six hours.

Niranjan Reddy gave this assurance after Congress camp expressed concerns stating that stocks of urea had dried up in all districts, leading to tension among the farmers' community.

He said that Telangana so far received 9.12 lakh metric tonnes of urea this season of the stipulated 10.5 lakh metric tonnes.

"After distribution, we have nearly 50,000 metric tonnes of urea as buffer with dealers, societies, agents and HACA centres and another 12,000 metric tonnes are in transit points on the way to the State," Niranjan Reddy, said, adding that himself, Agriculture Secretary and the Chief Minister were monitoring urea distribution and stocks left on daily basis.

The Minister pointed out that area under cultivation has increased by 33 per cent to 1.42 crore acre against 1.03 crore acre from previous year. Replying to another query by MLAs Y Anjaiah, Peddi Sudarshan Reddy and C Lingaiah earlier, the Minister stated that Rs 38,000 crore were distributed under Rythu Bandhu scheme in the last three years. Also, 33,884 members benefitted under Rythu Bima where the State spent Rs 2,917 crore as premium.

Further, he mentioned that agriculture clusters (of 5,000 acres) each were set to be increased by another 250 to 300 from the existing 2,604. Also, another 2,601 Rythu Vedika buildings were being constructed, informed the Minister. Speaking earlier, Congress MLA D Sridhar Babu said that farmers in 25 districts of the State were worried over lack of urea stocks in the State. He showed few paper clippings of farmers queuing up before centres for urea and placing chappals in queues instead of them standing for hours during the process.