Hyderabad: Seeking to step up protest against the Centre over the alleged discrimination in paddy procurement, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leaders on Sunday inspected the venue at Telangana Bhavan in the national capital while calling for a uniform procurement policy in the country.
TRS MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha along with other party leaders visited the Telangana Bhavan and the Jantar Mantar grounds and examined the preparations for the demonstration scheduled for April 11. According to reports, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao will lead the rally in which the majority of TRS MLAs, MPs, MLCs, and leaders will participate.
They have also set up a variety of hoardings including many in Hindi which will be put on display across the national capital demonstrating the Centre’s ‘stepmotherly treatment’ of Telangana.
The hoardings included portraits of the Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao with inscriptions such as ‘The Central government should defend the interests of farmers,’ ‘One nation, one paddy procurement policy,’ and ‘TRS party advocates one nation, one paddy procurement policy,’ among others.
Addressing the media, Kavitha said that the food security of the country will be endangered if there is no ‘uniform procurement’ policy by the Centre.
“The Central government should ensure the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for the farmers and must uniformly procure from states. The government will have to ensure uniform procurement of paddy from farmers of each state. If that does not happen, the food security of the country will be endangered,” she said.
Recently, the TRS workers had blocked four National Highways in Telangana to press their demand for a “uniform” procurement policy in the country.
On March 24, Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Piyush Goyal assured farmers of Telangana that there is absolutely no discrimination among the farmers from different states and added that some politicians in Telangana are misleading the farmers in the state.
The Telangana government has been pressing the Centre for the procurement of the entire paddy produced in the state. Last year, a delegation of Ministers from the state had even met union Ministers to make a clear announcement on paddy procurement, including the quantity.
With Agency inputs.
Follow on Twitter | Posted by Marziya Sharif | 
