The Telangana Government would wait for change of mind by the Centre for about a week and then intensify its struggle on the Rabi paddy procurement issue after Ugadi, Ministers S. Niranjan Reddy, G. Kamalakar, P. Ajay Kumar and V. Prashanth Reddy stated on Saturday.
“We are optimists and that’s why hoping for a change of mind by the Centre. We have an action plan already prepared in the event the Centre remains adamant and will unveil the strategy after Ugadi,” the Ministers said here, asking farmers to have faith in the TRS government as it hopes to find one way or the other to resolve the issue being a protection shield for them.
Stating that history stands proof as to what had happened to those who spoke against Telangana people or insulted them, the Ministers cited the example of former Chief Minister of combined Andhra Pradesh N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, who they said had gone on record that he would not give a penny to Telangana during a debate in the Assembly.
Misconception
The Ministers observed that the Centre was in a misconception that people of Telangana could be taken for a ride by creating confusion about raw rice and parboiled rice. Knowing well that giving 67 kg of raw rice every 100 kg of paddy milled was not possible in Telangana during the Rabi season, the Centre was adamant about it, the Ministers said.
“When the Centre is procuring other foodgrains in the form as they are produced, why are there conditions in case of paddy?” they sought to know.
Recollecting their meeting with Union Minister for Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goyal the other day, they said he spoke to them as if he was a landlord and they were peasants or slaves or like a trader with a seller in distress.
Mr. Goyal ‘insulted’ Telangana people even when they (Ministers) explained that processing raw rice from Rabi paddy was highly uneconomical and that was the reason why it was being processed as parboiled rice and has become a practise. Suggesting them to make people of Telangana consume broken rice or parboiled rice was height of his arrogance, the Ministers said.
On the document signed by Telangana on not supplying parboiled rice from this Rabi season, the Ministers said it was the Centre that had made the State accept the condition at knife-point for procuring Rabi paddy of 2020-21. Otherwise, it was unwilling to procure Rabi paddy last year itself, they pointed out and likened it to the Centre’s extortion of a State Government.
In spite of getting signed a document on its terms, the Centre was yet to lift 5.25 lakh tonnes of parboiled rice pertaining to 2020-21 Rabi season, the Ministers mentioned.
