HYDERABAD: Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting that the Food Ministry acquire the state's full paddy crop during the current Rabi season.
He also advised him to call a meeting of agriculture experts and Chief Ministers to develop a national procurement policy that would be appropriate.
KCR, as the Chief Minister is called, wrote the letter to the Prime Minister at a time when a group of Telangana ministers and MPs was in Delhi to see Food Minister Piyush Goyal and demand that the Centre purchase all of Telangana's paddy stocks, as it does in Punjab.
As per the MoU signed with the state government, the Centre should acquire the total quantity of paddy after meeting the state's PDS requirements. While this has been the practise in the past, the Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs has refused to procure paddy for the past two years, he said, adding that if the entire marketable surplus of paddy is not procured, it will have a negative impact on the farming sector and the overall economy, as well as the goal of national food security.
KCR believes that a national food grains procurement strategy should be implemented that is standard across the country and covers all food grains. Furthermore, such a strategy should be backed up by appropriate legislation to assure its execution.
The Chief Minister wrote, there is no standard national food grain purchase policy. "For instance, the Indian government purchases the entire marketable surplus of paddy and wheat in some states, such as Punjab and Haryana, but not in others, such as Telangana. The union government should not have separate strategies for different states within the country "he stated.
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