Hyderabad: Former Irrigation minister T Harish Rao on Monday, April 8, wrote to chief minister A Revanth Reddy demanding that the sunflower crop be purchased from the farmers in totality.
“In Telangana state, this time, farmers have harvested sunflower in 20,829 acres of joint Medak and erstwhile Nizamabad districts. I wrote to the government on February 22 this year that this crop is not getting minimum support price in the market. Responding to that, Agriculture minister Tummala Nageshwar Rao promised to buy the crop by paying the support price of Rs.6,760. According to that, the purchases in the markets started. But instead of buying the entire yield from the farmers, they bought only what the central government ought to collect as its share. The rest of the crop is currently not being purchased. As a result, 75 per cent of the crop is sold at a very low price and the farmers have to lose,” he said in the letter.
He further said that the state government should procure the 75 per cent crop and said that the previous BRS government purchased “till the last grain”.
“The state has a crop yield of 1,65,800 quintals. In this, the central government has agreed to buy only 37,300 quintals with its own funds. With the funds provided by the central government in the markets, they procured only as per the set target. The central government buys only 25 per cent of the total crop. The remaining 75 per cent of the crop has to be purchased by the state government. I remind you that during the years when the BRS party was in power, till the last grain was harvested by the farmers, buying centres were opened under Mark Fed and the crop was bought at a support price,” he added.
Rao alleged that the state government is deceiving the farmers by purchasing only up to the funds provided by the Centre and sought the chief minister’s intervention into the matter.
“This time also the farmers are demanding to be paid the minimum support price of Rs.6,760 till the last grain is harvested and are expected the state government to buy the sunflower crop…As the government did not come forward and buy it, the farmers had to sell their crops for just four to five thousand rupees and are losing the money,” he stated.
