Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandra Sekhar Rao decided to stop procurement of paddy and other crops at the village level, as the center’s new law permits farmers to sell their produce anywhere in the country. KCR took these decisions during a meeting with various Ministers and senior Agriculture Department officials. He also said the center already given permissions to the farmers to sell their produces where ever the country, with higher prices.

After the review meeting, the government in a press release said that “As the new agriculture laws of the Central government permit farmers to sell their crop anywhere in the country, the State government need not set up purchasing centres in villages.”  The government also decided to scrap regulating the crops, which was implemented for two seasons this year, could be the government’s inability to provide bonus to superfine rice cultivators due to Food Corporation of India (FCI) norms.

The Chief Minister taken U-turn on farm laws, he supported the farmers agitation some weeks ago, he appeared to be on the same page as the Centre on Sunday on those contentious legislations. The change in line came close on the heels of the Chief Minister’s visit to Delhi on December 13, during which he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The visit came after the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections, where the BJP did remarkably well.

Another nugget in Sunday’s basket of decisions was to nix regulated cropping, which till now was one of his major policy initiatives in the farm sector. The State government decided to let farmers choose whatever they want to cultivate.