Telangana has turned food bowl of India

Mahbubnagar: Telangana state has witnessed drastic transformation particularly with respect to the agriculture sector and today it has become one of the leading producers of food grains in India, said Srinivas Goud, minister for Excise, Tourism, Sports and Youth Welfare. He was speaking after inaugurating a paddy procurement centre run by Primary Agriculture Cooperative Society at Divitipally village in Mahabubnagar on Sunday.

The minister highlighted that the state government had been giving the highest priority to the agriculture sector and farmers welfare and for the past 8 years. "I am proud to say that ours is a farmer-centric government. We have been providing 24/7 free power to farming sector, providing input subsidy to the farmers and security to them in the form of Rythu bandhu and Rythu Bheema. Tthis apart we are procuring paddy and other grains at minimum support price by going to the farmers' doorsteps. We have also launched procurement centre in each and every village to facilitate the farmers," said the minister. He reminded that the earlier governments in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh ignored the farmers' issues in Telangana.

For providing awareness on the crop cultivation and to know their problems and issues, the state government had built Rythu Vedikas so that the farmers can come together to discuss their problems and issues with the extension officers and get their issues resolved, informed the minister.

It is because of the state government's proactive and innovative farsighted initiatives like construction of canals, reservoirs, and renovation of ponds and lakes under Mission Kakatiya that the irrigation water availability improved drastically in the villages. With this, the borewells also improved as the water table drastically improved and thus the farmers are able to produce different kinds of crops and today Telangana has surpassed Punjab and Haryana in the production of Paddy and emerged as India's leading Rice producer, informed the minister.