New Delhi,  The Centre seems to have acceded to the demands from Telangana vis-a-vis paddy procurement.

As on January 10, the Centre has continued to procure paddy from last season, i.e. Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2020-21 concurrent with this season (KMS 2021-22) with Telangana emerging as the state where the largest number of farmers, over 20 lakh, have benefitted with paddy procurement under Minimum Support Price (MSP).

The Centre procured a total of 8,95,83,293 metric tonnes paddy from 1,31,12,282 farmers at MSP worth Rs 1,69,133.26 crore from 22 states and UTs.

The development comes after paddy procurement had become a widely discussed topic in Telangana in recent days and trading of charges between that state and the Centre.

A delegation of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) ministers and MPs had camped in Delhi for six days in December end but could not extract a written commitment from the Centre to procure the entire stock of kharif rice.

Earlier, Union Food and Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal had assured in Rajya Sabha during a debate that the entire stock of Kharif rice would be procured by the Centre.

However, according to the Ministry's data for state-wise paddy procurement in KMS 2020-21 (upto January 9, 2022) as on January 10, 2022, as many as 21,64,354 Telangana farmers benefitted with paddy procurement at MSP, followed by Chhattisgarh (20,53,490), Odisha (13,94,647), Punjab (10,57,674), Uttar Pradesh (10,22,286), West Bengal (9,49,362), Tamil Nadu (8,52,152), Andhra Pradesh (8,03,945), Maharashtra (6,24,292), Madhya Pradesh (5,87,223) and Haryana (5,49,466)

The largest procurement for the KMS 2020-21 (upto January 9, 2022) as on January 10, 2022 was from Punjab (2,02,82,433 MT) followed by Telangana (1,41,08,787 MT), Andhra Pradesh (84,57,120 MT), Odisha (77,32,713 MT), Chhattisgarh (71,24,639 MT), Uttar Pradesh (66,84,277 MT), Haryana (56,54,735 MT), Madhya Pradesh (37,26,554 MT), Bihar (35,58,882 MT), West Bengal (27,79,064 MT), Tamil Nadu (44,90,222 MT), Maharashtra (18,98,993 MT), Uttarakhand (10,72,158 MT) and Gujarat (1,10,244 MT).

This procurement for KMS 2020-21 was done along with KMS 2021-22. A quantity of over 532.86 (LMT) of paddy has been procured in KMS 2021-22 in 22 procuring states and UTs up to Sunday, January 9 with about 64 lakh farmers benefitted with Minimum Support Price (MSP) worth over Rs 1 lakh crore.

The highest quantity has been procured from Punjab (1,86,85,53 MT) followed by Chhattisgarh (67,65,986 MT) and Telangana (65,54,739 MT) while the highest number of farmers benefitted in are Chhattisgarh (16,90,459), Telangana (9,67,134) and Punjab (9,24,299).