The Telangana Government has decentralised procurement of levy rice in the nine districts of the State (excluding Hyderabad). This helps save a lot of money spent on transportation of the commodity from FCI facilities to the Civil Supplies offices and then to the fair price shops.
This will also help the consumers in a particular district to get the rice produced in that district under the Public Distribution System.
The move was initiated during the unified Andhra Pradesh in the financial year 2012-13 when the Government decentralised the procurement in three districts of Karimnagar, Nalgonda and Warangal. It later added Medak to the list.
“We have taken a decision for the current financial year to add the remaining five districts of Mahbubnagar, Nizamabad, Adilabad, Khammam and Rangareddy,” C Partha Sarathi, Commissioner (Civil Supplies) and Ex-Officio Secretary to Government, said here in a statement on Friday.
Under the decentralised procurement, the entire raw rice will be sold by the rice millers to the State Civil Supplies Corporation under mill levy (the mandatory sale to the government). In addition, the Department would mill the paddy procured by it directly from the farmers in the respective districts.
The Food Corporation of India (FCI) will procure boiled rice under levy for PDS deliveries in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.