Hyderabad: About 25 percent of targeted crop sown area for kharif season (June-September) has been achieved in June with the state receiving 50 percent excess rainfall this month. According to an IMD report, the normal rainfall in the state for June should be 130 mm, but the state received 194.55 mm from June 1 to 30, which is in excess of 50 per cent. In June last year, the state received rainfall of 171.66 mm.
While Adilabad district received the highest rainfall of 318.77 mm, Wanaparthy district got the lowest rainfall of 76.8 mm. Out of total 33 districts, six districts - Mancherial, Nirmal, Kothagudem, Hyderabad, Rangareddy and Vikarabad – received normal rainfall, while the remaining 27 districts received excess rainfall.
The agriculture department has estimated total crop sown area of 141.12 lakh acres this kharif, of which crops were sown over an extent of 34.35 lakh acres in June amounting to 25 per cent of total estimated area. Cotton was sown in 26.05 lakh acres, red gram in 3.18 lakh acres and paddy in 96,000 acres. Green gram was sown in 50,000 acres and maize in one lakh acres.
This apart, vegetables and leafy vegetables were sown in 87,000 acres. Horticulture crops have been sown in 5.70 lakh acres.
The government has asked farmers to reduce paddy cultivation in kharif and opt for cotton and red gram crops instead. Agriculture minister Singireddy Niranjan Reddy said the Centre had allotted 25.5 lakh metric tonnes of fertilisers quota to Telangana for kharif of which 8.38 lakh metric tonnes including 4.35 lakh metric tonnes of urea stocks were available in the state at present.
He said the special task forces constituted by the state government to check sale of spurious seeds had been conducting raids across the state and booked 325 criminal cases and arrested 518 people so far. They seized 11,848 quintals of spurious seeds and stopped sales of 23,720 quintals of spurious seeds worth Rs 78 crore.
