Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday wrote to the Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal requesting to allow the sale of excess Flue Cure Virginia (FCV) tobacco produced in the state without any penalty for 2022 to 2023 crop season.
Jagan requested the Central government to issue necessary orders to the Tobacco Board, Guntur to allow the sale of excess FCV tobacco produced by the registered growers of the state without any penalty in SBS, SLS and NLS regions.
FCV tobacco Crop is grown under Southern Light Soils (SLS) and Southern Black Soils (SBS) regions in Prakasam, SPSR Nellore, Bapatla, Palnadu, Guntur and Northern Light Soils (NLS) West and East Godavari districts in the state.
He said that the crop was severely affected due to the Mandous cyclonic heavy rains and out of 53,000 hectares more than 50 per cent of the area was severely damaged.
The cyclone caused the tobacco growers to incur additional costs on the production of the crop during this year, as there is no alternate crop for the region the farmers were forced to go for replanting.
“As the FCV tobacco Farmers have already incurred heavy losses due to the mandous cyclone and also spent huge amounts for replanting and irrigating the crop, they are not in a position to pay the penalties to the Tobacco Board on excess tobacco produced beyond the authorised quantity,” said Jagan.
He mentioned that similar measures were taken by the Centre to allow the sale of excess FCV tobacco produced by the registered growers as well as the unauthorized FCV tobacco produced by the unregistered growers in Karnataka without any penalty during the 2022 to 2023 crop season.
The chief minister requested for the measures to be extended to provide to the AP farmers who suffered losses due to the cyclone.
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