Hyderabad: Telangana Agriculture minister Tummala Nageswara Rao on Tuesday, December 23, said that the state’s new mobile app for urea purchase, being piloted in five districts, has already been downloaded by one lakh farmers.
The app, launched to ensure transparent and timely delivery of urea to farmers, is showing promising early results, he added.
Urea app piloted in 5 districts
Reviewing urea distribution, minister Tummala said that so far, 19,695 farmers have used the app to book and buy a total of 60,510 urea bags. District-wise, 897 farmers in Adilabad, 5,150 in Janagama, 3,741 in Mahabubnagar, 3,618 in Nalgonda, and 6,289 in Peddapalli have received urea through the app.
In addition, 217 tenant farmers have booked 678 bags, indicating that the system is also reaching marginal and landless cultivators.
The minister acknowledged that there were some technical issues on the first day of operation, but these were quickly fixed by the technical team.
Through the “Rythu Nesta” programme, officials also addressed farmers’ doubts and helped them use the app smoothly. After a few more days of observation, he has now directed officials to roll out the app across the entire state.
5.3 L tonnes urea for Rabi
Tummala noted that for the ongoing rabi season, Telangana has already received 5.30 lakh tonnes of urea, ensuring adequate availability for farmers. The app is designed to integrate with land records and Pattadar Passbooks, so that urea is delivered directly to genuine farmers and diverted to industries or black markets.
Farmers can check urea stock availability at the district, mandal, and village level in real time, and book bags from any dealer in their district, not just their local one.
The system also supports tenant farmers, who can book urea by entering their Aadhaar and the landowner’s Pattadar Passbook details, with the owner’s OTP validation.
Appeal to centre on soybean
The minister also urged the central government to come to the aid of soybean farmers who suffered heavy losses due to untimely and prolonged rains during the kharif 2025–26 season.
In a letter to Union Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Tummala said soybean is a major kharif crop in Telangana, especially in northern districts where tribal farmers depend on it for their livelihood.
Around 3.66 lakh acres were under soybean cultivation this season, with an estimated production of about 2.79 lakh metric tonnes. However, heavy rains during the harvesting phase caused severe damage, with roughly 36,000 metric tonnes of soybean crop affected and much of it failing to meet the Fair Average Quality (FAQ) norms for procurement.
The minister requested the Centre to allow procurement of this rain-damaged soybean under the Price Support Scheme (PSS), and to relax FAQ norms if needed, so that farmers can get remunerative prices instead of being forced to sell at throwaway rates to traders.
He also highlighted similar distress among maize farmers and sought Centre’s support to offload the state’s maize stock through NAFED to ethanol and distillery industries, to reduce the financial burden on the state exchequer.
