TRS working president and Minister for IT and Industries K.T. Rama Rao has observed that the “irrational policy decisions of the Centre” and “lack of foresightedness” were leading the country towards shortage of food grains.
Reacting to the Centre’s decision to increase the export duty on rice and impose a ban on the export of broken rice, he said here on Saturday that the Centre’s “discriminatory attitude” in the procurement of foodgrains, particularly paddy, during the two previous crop seasons in Telangana, had led to the situation and demanded that the Centre bring a “one nation-one procurement” policy at least now, to overcome the threat to food security by extensive procurement of foodgrains.
He alleged that the Centre had mortgaged the country’s food security by not procuring huge quantities (lakhs of tonnes) of paddy during the two previous crop seasons. He also suggested Union Food and Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal to procure entire produce of foodgrains from States to ensure food security to the country by maintaining ample buffer stocks.
