HYDERABAD
Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao criticized the Center for neglecting Telangana’s agriculture sector, which contributes significantly to the state’s economy.
Repeated requests to the Center to increase import duty on palm oil to encourage cultivation of oil palm plantations yielded no result as there was no word about it in the budget. He blamed the Center for not allocating any funds to the Turmeric Board and not recognizing it as a high value crop, leaving the farmers of the spice crop in Telangana very disappointed.
The farmers were also expecting earmarked funds to support turmeric cultivation. Similarly, the Union budget also failed as it had no notification for the establishment of a coconut board, the minister said in a statement on Monday.
The minister said the budget proposals also indicated an increase in fertilizer prices and this would further burden the farming community as there were no interventions in the budget to reduce input costs. The center also failed to support legislation regarding the minimum support price and the budget also lacked direction on agricultural marketing, price stabilization and market reforms.
Further, there was no effort to encourage oilseed farmers as no decision was announced on import duty on edible oil. The Center has also reduced the allocation of funds to Telangana in the name of merging various central schemes into the agriculture sector.
Published – 02 Feb 2026 20:23 IST