The State government has assured that it is committed to stand by the farmers right from the sowing stage to marketing their produce.
Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao lamented that the negligent attitude of the previous government which confined itself to procuring a couple of crops for minimum support price, neglecting the others, had resulted in farmers in over 75 per cent arable area depending on these crops. The government had therefore decided to take steps to ensure that farmers secured remunerative prices for all varieties of crops.
The Minister directed the Agriculture officials to take steps to see that farmers cultivating mirchi which was flooding the markets now were not put to any inconvenience. Marketing department officials were directed to ensure that farmers did not face hardships in either sale of their produce and there were no complaints about the price at which mirchi was being sold.
The State and zonal level officials should be deputed as supervisors to the markets where the movement of the commodity was more. They should secure reports about the proceedings from time to time. Mirchi was cultivated over an extent of 3.91 lakh acres in the current season and 94,395 metric tonnes of the commodity had already arrived in the markets. With an estimated 3.37 lakh tonnes expected to arrive in the markets in the coming days, officials concerned as well as marketing committees should take necessary steps for ensuring smooth transactions without giving scope for negligence. Stringent action would be initiated against officials who were found guilty of dereliction of duties.
Likewise, steps should be taken to see that problems of the groundnut farmers were resolved so that they were not put to any inconvenience. Groundnut was cultivated in close to 2 lakh acres in the rabi season with 1.92 lakh metric tonnes of yield. More than 93,000 tonnes of the commodity had already arrived in the market and another 46,000 tonnes were expected in the coming days.
