Telangana ministers evade questions by media on Rabi paddy procurement delay

Hyderabad: Telangana ministers who held a press conference on paddy and maize procurement at Dr BR Ambedkar Telangana State Secretariat on Friday, May 29, walked out abruptly without answering questions from the media.

Civil Supplies Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy opened the briefing by dismissing reports of problems at Paddy Procurement Centres (PPC) as exaggerations by “certain social media news outlets.”

Reddy claimed that Telangana had not only topped the country in paddy production in 2025-26, but was also the only state spending from its own finances – Rs 16,479 crore – over and above the procurement target set by the Centre. He said the Food Corporation of India (FCI) was sourcing 75 per cent of its total national Rabi season procurement from Telangana alone.

By comparison, he said, the Centre was procuring 24 lakh tonne from Andhra Pradesh, 12-13 lakh tonne from Tamil Nadu, 3 lakh tonne from Maharashtra and 2 lakh tonne from Kerala. Despite Telangana’s rising output, the Centre had been reducing the state’s procurement targets every year, he pointed out.

The state government spent Rs 36,143 crore on paddy procurement in 2024-25, Reddy said, and was estimating Rs 39,359 crore in 2025-26 across Kharif and Rabi seasons combined. In the current Rabi season alone, 60 lakh tonne had been procured as of Friday, with a target of 75 lakh tonne.

Procurement was underway across 8,575 PPCs, involving around 2 lakh staff and 13,000 vehicles supplying paddy to 2,008 rice mills across the state. Rs 1,150 crore had already been deposited into farmers’ bank accounts, with minimum support price (MSP) payments being completed within 49 to 78 hours.

Reddy also drew a contrast with the previous government. “During the 10-year rule of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), the average MSP paid per year was around Rs 15,000 crore. In the last couple of years, the Congress government has spent an average of Rs 40,000 crore on paddy procurement,” he said.

Conceding that shortages of hamalis (workers who lift and load paddy), vehicles and gunny bags – the last partly due to elections in West Bengal – had caused delays, Reddy said all steps were being taken to accelerate procurement. District collectors had been instructed to press into service lorries and tractors otherwise engaged in sand and cement transport. 

A daily procurement target was being set for every district using an artificial intelligence (AI)-based scheduling system. He added that 10,214 tonne of rain-damaged paddy had been sent to rice mills for conversion into parboiled rice.

Maize procurement and a broadside at the Centre

Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao said 11 lakh tonne of maize had been procured so far, with another 2-3 lakh tonne expected in the coming days through TG MARKFED. He said Telangana had spent Rs 6,000 crore on maize procurement despite no other state in the country doing so, and assured that the government would also procure jowar, soybean, chickpea and sunflower – crops the Centre had declined to procure.

Tummala questioned why the FCI, NAFED and the Cotton Corporation of India were not procuring crops other than paddy from Telangana. He accused the Centre of undermining Telangana farmers by slashing import duties, reducing the duty on cotton to zero at a time the state had 45 lakh acre under cotton cultivation, and cutting the duty on palm oil from 44 per cent to 16 per cent just as the state was pushing to bring 10 lakh acre under oil palm.

He also took aim at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) ongoing “Rythu Gosa-BJP Bharosa” bus yatra across the state. “It is the Centre which is creating problems in the supply of diesel, urea and other inputs needed for procurement. Instead of fixing those mistakes, BJP leaders are shamelessly touring the state,” he said, dismissing the yatra as “Power Gosa” and predicting that farmers would see through the political theatre.

BC Welfare Minister Ponnam Prabhakar added that despite the BJP holding eight MPs from Telangana, the party’s leadership had not ensured adequate urea supply to the state.

How it ended

Reporters then asked why hamalis from Bihar, who had not been a significant factor during the COVID-19 period, were suddenly being cited as a reason for procurement delays. They also sought answers on warehouse storage capacity, deductions being made at PPCs and alleged deductions by rice millers.

Uttam Kumar Reddy did not answer any of these questions. He left the room and the other ministers followed.