Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Wednesday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to see that the Food Corporation of India step up rice procurement from the state and come up with an annual procurement plan in advance so that the state could plan its agriculture calendar.
In his letter to Prime Minister, the chief minister requested that the FCI be directed to enhance the rice procurement target for Telangana from 40 lakh tonnes to 90 per cent of entire production for the Kharif season, as was done in the case of Punjab.
He also sought to know how much rice would be procured by the Centre from the state during ensuing Rabi season.
KCR pointed out that the policies adopted by the FCI were creating confusion among farmers and also the state government.
“The FCI has not fixed any target of rice procurement for the entire year in one go. Further, even though the production is increasing year after year, the procurement is not keeping pace with it,” he said.
He said though the rice production in Telangana during Kharif 2020-21 was 55.75 lakh tonnes, the procurement was only 32.66 lakh tonnes which is 59 per cent of the production.
“This was far less than the 78 per cent procured in Kharif 2019-20. As a result, the state government was unable to implement a rational cropping pattern,” he said.
The chief minister said he had met Union minister for food and public distribution Piyush Goyal in New Delhi on September 25 and 26 and sought that the annual procurement targets be fixed, but so far, there was no communication from the Centre so far.
KCR requested the Prime Minister to direct the FCI to procure another five lakh tonnes of rice produced during the last Rabi season 2020-21 and also confirm the target of procurement of rice from Telangana during the next Rabi season.