Hyderabad: Address farmer issues immediately, demands Dasoju Sravan

Hyderabad: All India Congress Committee official spokesperson Dasoju Sravan on Wednesday said that farmers have been facing a lot of issues in selling their produce in the markets and government should take steps to address them immediately.

In an open letter to the Chief Minister, Sravan said that during this Rabi season various crops have been cultivated in about 53.68 lakh acres in Telangana. Major crops like paddy have been cultivated in 39.24 lakh acres, maize in 6.21 lakh acres, Bengal gram in 3.28 lakh acres and groundnut in 2.30 lakh acres, leading to a substantial increase in agricultural produce in the state.

He mentioned that, about 11 crore quintals of paddy has been produced but the procurement of the crop was very poor in the state. In the absence of Government's paddy procurement centres, farmers are forced to sell their produce to private rice millers at lesser prices.

In the case of gunny bags, the Government had said that 20 crore bags will be needed during this Rabi season and our state government will procure these gunny bags from West Bengal. There is a severe shortage of gunny bags and due to lack of these, paddy has been spoiled during the recent rains at several places.

As far as purchase of maize is concerned after a delay of two months, government has set up additional maize procurement centres during lockdown. While maize has been produced to the tune of 18.60 lakh metric tonnes, government has procured only 1.30 lakh tonnes of maize. He said that the situation of purchase of other crops was also not different.