Telangana CS holds meeting to take stock of paddy procurement in state
Hyderabad, May 5 (UNI) Telangana Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar on Thursday held a meeting with Civil Supplies department officials and took stock of the paddy procurement in the state.
Commissioner Civil Supplies V Anil Kumar informed that paddy procurement is going on smoothly across the state.
He said so far 4.61 lakh metric tonnes of paddy have been procured in the state from 61,300 farmers through 3,679 procurement centres.
The present availability of gunny bags is sufficient to procure 31 lakh metric tonnes of paddy.
Kumar stated that while 7.8 crore gunny bags are readily available, tenders for procuring eight crore gunny bags are being finalized today.
In addition to that, 2.5 crore gunny bags will be received from Jute Corporation of India shortly. 51 check posts have been established in 17 bordering districts of the state to ensure that paddy is not brought by middlemen from other states to the paddy procurement centres, an official release here said.
The Chief Secretary directed the officials to upload the details of paddy procured on the same day so that payment can be made to the farmers at the earliest.
He said that funds are not a problem as the government has mobilized 5,000 Crore so far for this purpose.
Somesh Kumar said as soon as the paddy is procured the same is being sent to mills. About 4.3 lakh metric tonnes of paddy has been shifted to mills till today and as such there is no backlog, he said.
The Chief Secretary said as the harvesting has not started in Warangal, Gadwal, Wanaparthy, Bhoopalpally and Nagarkurnool districts, paddy procurement centres have not been set up in these districts and added that the paddy procurement centres will be set up once harvesting in these districts begins.
Raji Reddy, General Manager Procurement, Arun, Deputy General Manger Procurement, Vishwanth, Asst. Commissioner, IT, Rukmini, Dy.Commissioner, Procurement, Padmaja, Dy.Commissioner, NFSA attended the meeting.
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