On Tuesday, the chief minister of Telangana K.Chandrasekhar Rao proclaimed that the government had committed to buy paddy at a Minimum Support Price (MSP) from farmers in the rabi season, which costs the state about Rs 3,500 crore. And the government had also decided to withdraw GO 111, which secures the Himayatsagar and Osmansagar, the two drinking water lakes.
During his interaction with the media on the decisions made by the state cabinet, the chief minister said that a committee chaired by the Chief Secretary had been formed to frame guidelines on how to guard the two lakes against pollution after GO 111 is repealed, by corroborating moderate green zones and originating a credible approach to control construction caper.
KCR announced that paddy procurement centers would be opened in all the villages from today, and asked farmers not to fall back on fright selling or selling their produce below MSP to rice millers or traders.
The chief minister said, “We did everything from our side to stress the Centre to purchase paddy but there was no comeback. We don’t want farmers to sustain losses due to the fallacious strategies of the Centre. This is the reason behind our decision to procure paddy on our own even if it is an additional liability of Rs 3,500 crore on the state government. Our goal is to uncover the Centre’s deception on paddy procurement and make it mortified before the people with our disconcertment. We were successful in this”, Rao concluded.
He elucidated clearly, ” Today, Telangana produces a quantity of paddy which no other state can match owing to the TRS government’s pro-farmer strategies. In the rabi season, the whole crop sown area of paddy in India is 1.03 crore acres of which Telangana has 35.84 lakh acres. No other state can possess at least half of the Telangana achievement. This is why paddy procurement has become an issue and at the same time, the Centre is not in a position to buy the amount of paddy produced in the state.”