The Food and Civil Supplies Minister R. Sakkarapani has refuted the allegation of Leader of Opposition Edappadi K. Palaniswami that the DMK government was not taking steps to procure adequate paddy from farmers in the delta region.
In a detailed press note, the Food and Civil Supplies Minister claimed the Opposition leader was providing false information about paddy procurement from delta farmers. Mr. Sakkarapani said since the DMK government came to power, the practice of procuring paddy had been advanced to September instead of October resulting in the safeguarding of paddy cultivation from floods.
Also, the Chief Minister M.K. Stalin had convened a meeting, on October 2, of the various departments including the Food and Civil Supplies to speed up the paddy cultivation. Based on this meeting, paddy procurement was carried out in the districts of Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam, Mayiladuthurai and Cuddalore, and the grains stored in godowns.
The DMK government has been taking several steps for the development of the paddy farmers and as part of this for the financial year 2025-26 the State witnessed record cultivation of paddy for the Kuruvai season by increasing the cultivation lands to 6.13 lakh acres and also doubling the procurement. The Civil supplies department has opened 1,805 paddy procurement centres and these centres have been operating on all days including Sundays and procurement was being carried out.
While during the AIADMK regime of 10 years the total paddy procurement stood at 1.80 crore metric tonnes, the DMK government had surpassed the procurement to 1.94 crore metric tonnes within 53 months.
Mr. Sakkarapani also claimed that the AIADMK government failed to increase the incentive price to the farmers for 10 years whereas the DMK government has been repeatedly increasing the incentive price to farmers.
Published – October 22, 2025 07:41 pm IST
