Cotton procurement Centre in Telangana

Hyderabad: With cotton being sowed in 1.86 million hectares of land for the first time in the history of Telangana, the Cotton Corp. of India has set up 59 additional centres (84 already existing) across the state this year. Anticipating a huge amount of produce coming in from October, the agricultural marketing department is ensuring that there is no disruption in the state-run market yards this year.

According to data from the agricultural marketing department, an estimated cotton produce of 2.81 million metric tonnes is expected to reach market yards in Telangana in 2017-18, from 1.86 million hectares of land sowed. In 2016-17, the area sowed was 1.24 million hectares, which yielded 2.47 million metric tonnes of produce.

A senior official from the department said that given the 50% increase in sowing, the state government had proposed to the Cotton Corp. of India to set up 143 centres this year, instead of the earlier 92 based on the previous year’s produce. The centres usually run for just two or three days a week. They have been asked to be open on all working days now.

Although cotton enjoys a minimum support price (MSP), officials are still wary that excess production might cause some unrest among farmers in case they do not get the price they are expecting. Earlier in May, chilli farmers ransacked the agricultural market yard in Khammam district as excess production caused a price crash.