Bengaluru: The Karnataka government has responded to the problems of mango growers and declared a support price of Rs 2.50/kg (Rs 2,500 per tonne). Agriculture Minister N H Shivashankara Reddy declared the measure in both the houses of the State Legislature.
Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy also informed about the decision in the Assembly. “In state, farmers got a good crop of mango this time and the same thing happened in the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh government has banned purchase of mango from Karnataka. So, farmers of the state are in trouble”, he said.
In the state, there are only two mango processing units whereas Andhra Pradesh has 59 units. “We can’t process a huge amount of crop. We checked about the processing units of Maharashtra but they have around 50,000 metric tonnes of fruits already in their units. Andhra Pradesh CM is on tour of Singapore and I could not speak to him,” Karnataka CM said expressing his helplessness.
This is the first time in the history of the state that the government has declared support price for mango. The decision would burden the treasury by around Rs 17-20 Crore.
The CM assured the members of the legislature that more mango processing units would be set up in the state.
Speaker Ramesh Kumar intervened in the discussion and suggested paying the support price through only APMC to avoid misappropriation.
