Hyderabad, Mar 15 (UNI) Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy on Sunday demanded that the Telangana government must create revolving fund on war footing to purchase important crops like redgram and cotton from the farmers of the state.

Speaking to media after conducting review meeting with the officials of State and Central governments on Redgram and Cotton, here, Mr Reddy said on the request of the state government, Centre has purchased 51,625 metric tones of Redgram (25 per cent) with Rs 5,800 per quintal through National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED) and released Rs 266 crore.

In the meantime, the state government has also urged the Centre to purchase one lakh metric tones of Redgram in additional because of getting more yield this season in Telangana.

Based on the request of the state government, the Centre has agreed and issued necessary instructions to the NAFED. During this gap, some of farmers have sold out their redgram crop in the private market at the rate of Rs 3500 to Rs 4000 per quintal with the loss of Rs 1800 per quintal. If state government purchase this crop during the gap period, the farmers would be benefited.

So that the state government must create revolving fund on war footing to purchase crops during the gap period (in communication between state and Centre), Mr Reddy said.


He said that in 2017-18, the state government had purchased 1,86,000 metric tones of Redgram by spending Rs 1300 crore, while in 2018-19, the state government purchased 25,000 metric tones of Redgram by spending Rs 145 crore. In 2019-20, the state government not purchased even one kg of Redgram wherein the Centre is spending Rs 879 crore, Mr Reddy said.

Stating that the Karnataka government is extending Rs 300 per quintal as bonus on Redgram to the farmer, Mr Reddy said the Telangana government was not extending such bonus in the state to the farmers.

He said that the Centre had purchased purchased 20 lakh metric tones of Cotton through the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) by spending 10,576 crore. About 500 temporary employees were engaged for this purpose.
UNI VV GK 1750