The BJP Telangana unit has accused the State government of calling for tenders to sell procured paddy for mobilising election funds, and said the millers have been given a raw deal with this decision on Monday.
BJP’s Nizamabad MP D.Aravind alleged at a press conference at the party office that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had “hatched a plan” to sell off rice by about ₹4-5 less a kg to corporates and thereby, “dubiously earn crores of rupees in commission”.
The MP explained that the government had placed stringent norms in the auction for the custom milling rice such as stipulating that the firms should have a ₹1,000-crore turnover with ₹100-crore profit. In the first phase, the government intends to auction about 25 lakh metric tonnes.
He claimed that the rice millers are ready to purchase paddy at the minimum support price announced by the Centre but the current stipulations do not permit ‘mid-level’ rice millers to participate in the auctions and this is adversely affecting about 2,500 rice millers.
Mr.Aravind warned that if the rice millers shut shop, it will directly affect farmers but the government was hell-bent on going ahead as it was “desperate for funds” for the forthcoming elections where the ruling party’s plan is to spend a lot of money in each constituency.
The BJP MP accused the government of “peddling lies” in claiming that the Food Corporation of India godowns are not enough when the public sector organisation had clearly stated it was prepared to take on lease seven lakh metric tonnes extra storage space for paddy. But, the BRS government did not take up paddy procurement to the extent it should have had and had even delayed the process leading to the paddy getting soiled during the rains and causing heavy loss to farmers, he claimed.
“The Centre gives funds for every aspect of procurement, from gunny bags, transport and minimum support price to the paddy, but the government had utterly failed in its procurement. The BRS regime had in various stages threatened the farmers against cultivating paddy, growing maize and successfully shut down sugar factories in Telangana,” he charged and added that giving another term to KCR could lead to shutting down of agriculture operations in toto.
