Hyderabad: In a setback to Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, the Centre on Wednesday clearly indicated that it is not possible to procure the entire paddy produced in any state on the grounds that procurement depends on multiple factors and not just on production.
The Chief Minister earlier on Monday strongly demanded that the Centre procure 100 per cent paddy from Telangana in rabi and threatened to launch a massive agitation on the lines of Telangana statehood movement if the Centre refuses to do so.
In his written reply to Lok Sabha on Wednesday on the issue of paddy procurement, the union minister for food and public distribution Piyush Goyal, said, “Procurement in a state depends not only upon production but also upon other multiple factors like marketable surplus, MSP, prevailing market rate, demand and supply situation and participation of private traders etc.”
The union minister’s statement came as a rude shock to the Telangana ministerial delegation, which landed in Delhi on Tuesday to meet Piyush Goyal with a demand to procure 100 per cent paddy from Telangana in rabi as demanded by the Chief Minister on Monday.
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