Centre refuses to buy paddy in rabi

State told to appeal to farmers not to grow paddy

The efforts of the State government to persuade Centre to lift the paddy produced in the State in the ongoing rabi suffered a serious setback late on Friday night with the Union Minister for Food and Public Distribution System Piyush Goyal categorically announcing that the government will not buy the produce.

After a hour-long meeting of Ministers and officials from the State in Delhi, Agriculture Minister S. Niranjan Reddy told media persons that the Centre had also not agreed to fix the target for procurement of paddy from Telangana for the two crops during 2021-22. It advised State to appeal to farmers not to grow paddy in the present crop. Quoting Mr. Goyal, Mr. Reddy said it was impossible to tell how much will be procured.

Mr. Reddy said the Centre, however, came close to accepting the State’s claims that paddy was cultivated in kharif of this year over 62 lakh acres. After much dilly dallying and initial refusal to accept the State’s estimates, the Centre said it had used satellite data which showed crop in over 58 lakh acres.