Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur expects 4.66 lakh tonnes cotton

The Andhra Pradesh agriculture department officials are expecting 4.66 lakh tonnes of cotton out of 1.82 lakh hectares of farm land in Guntur district, according to civil supplies minister P Pulla Rao, who held a review meeting recently with officials and asked them to ensure farmers get the minimum support price (MSP) set by the government for their crop.

The Cotton Corporation of India will set up 11 purchase centres in the district to purchase cotton from the farmers at the MSP, a report in a South Indian English-language daily quoted Rao as saying.

The state government’s marketing department will open 43 cotton purchase centres and install CCTV cameras to curb the menace of middlemen, marketing department commissioner S Anand Kumar said.