It was a day long wait for the four Ministers – S. Niranjan Reddy (Agriculture), Gangula Kamalakar (Civil Supplies), Puvvada Ajay Kumar (Transport) and Vemula Prashanth Reddy (Roads and Buildings) – from Telangana to meet Union Minister for Food and Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs Piyush Goyal at New Delhi. As the Minister was busy with Parliament sessions they could not meet him despite all their efforts.
Tealngana Ministers left to New Delhi on Tuesday to bring pressure on the Union Government to procure paddy from the State. They have already sought appointment from the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mr Piyush Goyal.
Led by Parliamentary party leader K. Keshava Rao, the TRS MP s met Mr. Goyal at Rajya Sabha lobbies and informed him that four Ministers flew here from Hyderabad to meet him and sought his appointment. Responding to their request, the Union Minister said that he was already busy with Parliament sessions in addition to having prefixed appointments and meetings. He informed the TRS members that he would let them know when the appointment would be fixed after going through his schedules. The TRS MP s are hopeful that appointment will be fixed on Thursday with Mr. Goyal.
In a related development, Mr. Piyush Goyal and Minister of State for Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, replying to some questions in Lok Sabha made it clear that it was not possible to procure paddy from states based on the production in respective states. “There will be several issues that would be considered including minimum support price, production, demand, supply and market prices. Paddy and wheat has to be procured based on quality as they have to be redistributed to States under Food Security Act. We are procuring raw paddy from the states for MSP after discussing with Food Corporation of India (FCI) as per plan,” they have informed Lok Sabha.
