HYDERABAD
Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao has asked the Markfed authorities to speed up procurement of maize taken up with ₹4,000 crore and said the government is also ready to procure jowar with ₹1,100 crore.
He criticised the Centre for not coming to the rescue of the farming community despite repeated pleas on their troubles and losses being suffered with unseasonal rains. He demanded that the Centre include maize and jowar in the price support scheme and lift the ceiling of 25% of the produce in the procurement of bengalgram and groundnut and increase it to at least 50%.
In a meeting with the marketing department officials, he reviewed the ongoing exercise of maize procurement, storage facilities, availability of gunny sacks, transportation arrangements and Central Government policies. Officials informed the minister that 9.57 lakh tonnes of maize was procured from farmers so far at the minimum support price of ₹2,400 per acre. The value of the procurement so far is about ₹2,297 crore.
He stated that godowns/storage facilities of 15.07 lakh tonnes quantity would be required for storing maize procured this season but the available space was only for 11.4 lakh tonnes. As the storage space for another 3.29 lakh tonnes was required at the earliest, he asked the authorities to make necessary arrangements for storage.
Against the requirement of 3 crore gunny bags for maize procurement, 2 crore bags were arranged already. The minister said he would write to the Union Minister for Agriculture requesting increase in the procurement of bengalgram and groundnut crops to at least 50% of the total produce.
According to Agriculture officials, maize was cultivated in 16,36,730 acres in Rabi and the production was estimated at 43,48,791.6 tonnes at 26.57 quintals per acre. Similarly, jowar was raised in 4,03,400 acres and production estimated was 4,03,400 tonnes at an average 10 quintals per acre. The MSP fixed for jowar by the Centre is ₹3,699 per quintal for hybrid varieties and ₹3,749 per quintal for ‘maldandi’ variety.