Telugu Desam Party (TDP) spokesperson, Kommareddy Pattabhiram, on Tuesday asked the State Government as to how there is a steep rise in rice exports from the Kakinada port though the paddy production in the State has gone down drastically in the past couple of years.
The TDP spokesman told media persons here that in 2018-19 the paddy production in the State was 82.30 lakh tonnes it came down to 78.90 lakh tonnes in 2020-21. The rice exports in 2018-19 were 18.0akh tonnes and in 2020-21 the exports rose to 31.51 lakh tonnes and by 2021-22 the exports went up remarkably to 48.26 lakh tonnes. How there is such sudden growth in the export of rice, he asked.
The reports from the Centre clearly mentioned that there is no growth in the paddy cultivation in Andhra Pradesh in the past couple of years, Pattabhiram pointed out and asked when this is the reality how the exports have shot up so high. This clearly indicates that the ration rice is being diverted and the stocks are being exported to foreign countries, the TDP leader said.
Pattabhiram said that the State government has made it clear that 82.75 lakh tonnes of ice was procured in 2020-21 while the Central reports said that the production in the same year was only 78.90 lakh tonnes. This means that something went wrong somewhere, Pattabham said and demanded that only a probe by the CBI will bring facts to light.
Observing that the three-and-a-half-year rule of the YSRCP is filled with scams like rice scandal, land scam, liquor scandal and mining, Pattabhiram stated that Chief Minister, Jagan Mohan Reddy, always focuses on how to fill his pockets but never thinks about the poor and the downtrodden sections of society.
Union Minister, Piyush Goel, admitted on the floor of Parliament itself that there are no accounts for 5.70 lakh tonnes of rice supplied by the Centre to the State, Pattabhiram said adding that this rice is being exported through Kakinada port by the mafia. The TDP leader stated that the claim by the YSRCP leaders that the rice exports have gone up as the stocks are from Chhattisgarh State are baseless and totally wrong.
