Hyderabad: Irrigation and civil supplies minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy rejected the claims and allegations made by BRS working president KT Rama Rao. He said that the BRS is spreading a false and politically motivated campaign over the ongoing paddy procurement operations in Telangana.In a statement, the minister said KTR’s remarks were “a bundle of lies, half-truths and desperate political propaganda.”He asserted that the Congress govt is implementing the largest-ever paddy procurement exercise in the history of Telangana and is fully committed to safeguarding farmers’ interests. He said the govt has already procured 46.2 lakh metric tonnes (LMTs) of paddy out of the 54.2 LMTs that arrived at Paddy Procurement Centres (PPCs), achieving nearly 85% procurement completion, involving more than 6.3 lakh farmer transactions.The present procurement operations are being conducted on a scale significantly larger than previous Rabi seasons under the BRS regime. Payments released to farmers have already reached ₹7,841 crore. Thus, the current procurement season has already surpassed multiple previous Rabi seasons both in procurement quantity and payments released, the minister said, adding that this completely disproves allegations of any “collapse” in procurement operations.Uttam also denied allegations regarding the shortage of gunny bags, calling them completely baseless. “The govt has already positioned 19.7 crore gunny bags in the field, which is sufficient for procurement of the entire paddy that has arrived at paddy procurement centres,” he said.While isolated operational challenges may arise in a procurement exercise of this unprecedented scale, portraying the entire system as ‘collapsed’ is inaccurate and politically motivated, he added.“The state govt continues to work proactively through constant field-level supervision, daily reviews, large-scale transportation deployment, adequate logistical arrangements and uninterrupted financial support to ensure smooth procurement operations and timely payments to farmers across Telangana,” he said.
