Telangana: Shortage of hamalis, gunny bags hit paddy procurement in State

Hyderabad: Shortage of agriculture labourers, hamali workers and gunny bags ahead of the paddy procurement is giving sleepless nights to officials in the State.

According to official sources, the nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 has hit the supply lines and the officials are finding ways and means to get 10 crore additional stocks of gunny bags to meet the ensuing paddy procurement demand.

Speaking to The Hans India, a senior official from the State Marketing Department said, "For the procurement of paddy, 56 per cent of new and 46 per cent of old serviceable gunny bags of 50 kgs are used. For this, the Civil Supplies department had already evaluated the district-wise stocks needed and floated tenders to empanel the suppliers for abut 5 crore old serviceable gunny bags." Similarly, the department also completed the process to procure stocks of new bags from West Bengal, Eluru and Vizianagaram in Andhra Pradesh. Tenders were floated for six trenches to argument the gunny bags and the suppliers have to send the stocks, he added.

However, the suppliers located in the West Bengal and other places could not send the stocks due to the lockdown.

Referring to the shortage, State Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy said that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao has already written a letter to the Centre on expediting supply of gunny bags from the industries located in the West Bengal. The same request was again made to the Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Sing Tomar, during a video conference with the Agriculture Ministers of all the States in the country which was held on Wednesday. "We hope required stocks will be provided, in particular from the industries located in West Bengal," he added. Further, efforts are on to fill the gap with the serviceable old gunny bags which are requisitioned in two phases. "The Minister said that paddy is being harvested in about 40 lakh acres in the State and the expected yield that come for procurement would be around 3 lakh metric tonnes."

Shortage of the agriculture labourers during the harvesting of paddy and hamali workers to carry out loading and unloading activities at the procurement centres and warehouses are the two major problems which need to be addressed, the officials pointed out.

To address the issue, the State government asked the Center to link the agriculture with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). However, to date, there is no response from the Centre on this issue, the official said.