Rain threat spurs swift paddy procurement drive in T’gana

Hyderabad: Irrigation and civil supplies minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Monday directed officials to take swift measures to scale up paddy procurement operations while ensuring urgent safeguards to protect farmers from untimely rains and losses.In view of the forecast of untimely rains this week and the summer showers that lashed multiple districts on Sunday night, triggering havoc on paddy stocks at harvest centres and market yards, the minister held an urgent video conference with district in charge ministers, collectors, civil supplies commissioner Stephen Ravindra and senior officials.The meeting reviewed the season's progress, including paddy arrivals and procurement, and focused sharply on accelerating procurement, tackling bottlenecks and protecting farmers from heavy losses caused by unseasonal rains and heat-wave conditions across several districts.Putting the official machinery involved in minimum support price (MSP) operations on high alert, Uttam Kumar Reddy emphasised the need for vigilant monitoring of weather conditions and ensuring that farmers were re promptly informed about rainfall forecasts from time to time.Procurement has so far reached around 14 lakh metric tonnes (LMT), including over eight lakh metric tonnes of coarse varieties, with all 8,575 paddy procurement centres (PPCs) fully operational. An amount of over 1,365 crore has already been remitted into the accounts of farmers.He wanted special focus on high-volume PPCs, especially those in Nalgonda and Nizamabad districts. Unseasonal rains accompanied by strong winds have drenched significant quantities of paddy in different districts, including Nalgonda, Mahabubnagar and Khammam. The Nalgonda collector reported 299 MT of wet paddy across four centres following a sudden 20-minute storm on Sunday evening that blew off tarpaulins despite prior alerts.Similar incidents were reported in Mahabubabad, Suryapet, Khammam and Kothagudem. The minister directed collectors to treat protection of farmers' produce from unseasonal downpours as a top priority. He insisted on advance positioning of tarpaulins at every PPC based on daily morning weather alerts.All drenched paddy should be immediately shifted to assigned parboiled rice mills using already-issued district allocations to salvage the crop. He directed officials to ensure that tarpaulins were used properly and stocks were covered before any visible damage occurs. Officials were told to prepare for continued unseasonal rains by taking all precautionary steps.