TG fine rice makes its way into border states

Hyderabad: With the Civil Supplies department’s failure to reach the targets to meet the requirement for launching the State government’s prestigious PDS Sanna Biyyam (superfine variety) distribution programme, the officials have decided to tighten the tracking mechanism.

According to official sources, out of a total of 1.5 crore metric tonnes (MT) of record paddy produced this season, only 50 lakh metric tonnes was procured through farmers. As part of the ‘Action Plan’ prepared in October-end, the Civil supplies targeted 80 LMT, which includes 30 LMTs of coarse paddy and 50 LMTs of ‘sannarakam’ paddy. Despite the State government offering Rs 500 bonus on a superfine variety of paddy, most of the State’s produce made its way to neighbouring states.

“The expected procurement volume in the beginning was 90 LMT, but later brought it down to 70 LMT and ended up with 50 LMT, since Kharif crop remains in high demand in other States. In spite of the offer of Rs 2,800 (MSP + bonus of Rs 500) per quintal, owing to better offers, farmers sold away their produce to private players, be it private millers or traders in other States,” said a department official.

It is believed that the entire paddy produced in erstwhile Mahbubnagar district is making its way to Raichur in Karnataka, and from erstwhile Khammam and Nalgonda to AP. While from some places like Huzurabad near Karimnagar the produce also made its way to markets like Red Hills near Chennai.

However, in view of the State government’s commitment to offer the Sanna Biyyam through PDS, the authorities have decided to tighten the norms. As part of the existing norms the Civil Supplies should be given the preference of procurement, while the millers should also give preference in milling the government paddy. The millers have to maintain all the detailed records about government’s paddy and paddy procured for their own business in separate registers. “Since GO is there, if you don’t mill government paddy, you stand ineligible for milling even private paddy and this invites seizures. Generally we don’t keep track, but now we are capturing all the information,” informed the official.