An additional grain storage capacity of 1.5 lakh tonne in godowns is targeted to be created during the years 2012 and 2013 by the Marketing Department with its own financial resources, B. Aravinda Reddy, Marketing Commissioner, said here on Monday.

Talking to press persons, he said that the State-wide storage capacity was 10 lakh tonnes, of which 3.5 lakh tonnes was created during 2010-12. Yet, there was a shortage of godowns.

Mr. Reddy disclosed that a proposal to introduce SMS clearance of transporting grains at checkposts, in place of waybills, was under consideration by the department.

Referring to the Rythu Bazaars, he said that there was no move to add any in the district. There were 109 Rythu Bazaars across the State. The department would shortly initiate the process of filling 374 vacant posts in the agriculture market yards in the State. Fifty per cent of the posts in the yards were lying unfilled in view of the recruitment ban.

Mr. Reddy stated that the department had called for a proposal to set up a new market yard in Nalgonda as the existing one was found to be inadequate.

After going around the market yard here, he asked officials to immediately install electronic weighing machines. During interaction, farmers pleaded for installation of dryers and provision of cold purified water facility of 100 litres per hour in the yard. Some ryots wanted the level of the platforms raised to tide over the problem of grains getting wet in floods during monsoon.

source: http://www.TheHindu.com / National> Andhra Pradesh / by Correspondent / Nalgonda,  May 01st, 2012