School buildings serve as warehouses

TIRUPATI: In Anantapur district, good rains has ensured a good harvest of paddy. The crop, cultivated in 57,000 acres, gave a yield of 1.7 lakh metric tonnes. However, with lack of government warehouses to store the procured paddy, school buildings were utilized for the purpose. Now with schools ready to reopen, officials are looking for an alternative. Meanwhile, the government has asked Civil Supplies officials to rent private warehouses for lease.Paddy is cultivated in Bommanahalli, Kannekal and Brahma Samudram mandals by waters from the High Level Canal. However, there are not many buyers at the procurement centres in the three mandals. Farmers have, therefore, been forced to sell their produce in the neighboring state of Karnataka. However, with farmers having no permission to sell the produce in Karnataka, it is all done illegally.On the other hand, Chittoor can be considered a marginal paddy-producing district. For lack of proper irrigation, cultivation is taken up by a small percentage of farmers. The yield is usually around 32,000 to 35,000 metric tonnes per season. This Rabi season, 35,000 metric tonnes of paddy was produced in 22,466 hectares. In near future, once the Handri-Neeva Sujala Sravanthi and Galeru Nagari Sujala Sravanthi projects are completed, there is a chance for increase in area of paddy cultivation.There are 37 rice mills in the district and demand for paddy from millers is high. Hence, whatever paddy is produced by farmers is immediately purchased. “We have not received any complaint pertaining to minimum support price for paddy so far,” joint collector Ch Vijay Mohan said. “I had held a meeting with rice millers and officials twenty days ago and warned of stringent action, if anybody was found exploiting farmers or not adhering to the MSP,” Vijay Mohan said.For every two mandals, a deputy tahasildar of Civil Supplies has been entrusted with monitoring of paddy procurement. The joint collector said there are at present no separate procurement centres.“We are thinking of setting up paddy procurement centres through IKP groups as an alternative for farmers,” he added.