7,000 paddy procurement centres set up in State: Minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao

Warangal: The State government has set up 7,000 procurement centres across Telangana to purchase paddy from farmers who cultivated it during the Rabi, Minister for Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Errabelli Dayakar Rao said.

Inaugurating a procurement centre run by the PACS at Raiparthy mandal headquarters on Thursday, he said that paddy production in the State increased to 1.41 crore metric tonnes (MT) from 24 lakh metric tonnes. In all, paddy cultivation increased to 65 lakh acres from 3 lakh acres, he added. The government will spend Rs 15 crore to procure paddy this year. The support price of the paddy is Rs 2,060 for A Grade and Rs 2,040 for B Grade, he said. No other State in the country matches Telangana in terms of supporting agriculture, Errabelli said, appealing to people to compare the benefits they got in the united Andhra Pradesh and now. He directed the officials to speed up the procurement of paddy. Later, the minister distributed clothes to Muslims in view of the upcoming Ramzan. He recalled KCR's words - Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb of Telangana State is a role model for the cultural life of the world.

Errabelli said that Telangana is a secular State where all religions get equal respect.