The State government has decided to step in early to check the slide in the market prices of redgram this season by opening most of the proposed procurement centres by the month-end as the arrivals of the produce are expected to flood the markets soon after Sankranti festival.
Market intervention has become necessary as the prices of the pulse crop have been ranging much below the minimum support price (MSP) of ₹5,675 per quintal fixed by the Centre.
Traders have been offering only ₹4,300 to ₹4,700 per quintal to farmers who are taking their produce to the markets during the last couple of weeks although cultivation of the crop has been marginally lesser in 2018-19 Kharif at 2.78 lakh hectares against 2.86 lakh hectares in 2017-18 Kharif.
The Agriculture Department has estimated the production of the major pulse crop to be around 2.24 lakh tonnes this year with the yield expected to be around 8 quintals per hectare due to uneven spread of monsoon rains and about a dozen districts suffering high rainfall deficit ranging from 22.39% to 41.63%. During the previous (2017-18) Kharif season, the yield was around 10 quintals per hectare with the help of favourable weather conditions.
146 centres
“We have planned to open 146 procurement centres to purchase redgram from farmers this year and of them 19 centres have been opened so far procuring about 14,543 tonnes from over 11,100 farmers,” Agriculture Production Commissioner C. Parthasarathi said.
District officials of the Marketing Department and District Managers of the Telangana State Cooperative Marketing Federation (TS-Markfed) have been told to step up procurement after Sankranti. Hyderabad Agricultural Cooperative Association (HACA) would also be involved in procurement. In spite of pursuing the matter even before the commencement of harvesting season, the Agriculture Department could get the Centre's permission for procurement of only 70,300 tonnes of redgram, which is just over 25% of the total estimated production, this year under the price support scheme (PSS) by the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (Nafed).
Last year, the officials could get the permission to procure 75,300 tonnes redgram, although they took up the matter at various levels in the Centre to enhance the procurement quantity to at least 1 lakh tonnes. The State government had ultimately procured 1.86 lakh tonnes last year beyond the quantity allowed by the Centre and the entire quantity was sold in auction a couple of months back at an average price of ₹32,348 per tonne.