FM dials ITC, asks to buy millets from Karnataka’s drought-hit farmers

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has asked ITC chairman Sanjiv Puri to draft a team from his company to Karnataka and facilitate procuring Sri Anna millets from drought-hit farmers.

Her intervention with ITC followed a meeting Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda and Agriculture Minister N Cheluvarayaswamy had with her in Delhi on Thursday.

She has asked Puri to also consider other measures that can help the state's farmers, the FM said in a post on social media platform X.


Sitharaman added that she had explained the initiatives the Centre was taking on the subject during her discussion with the ministers.


Karnataka has declared 224 out of its 236 taluks as drought hit.

Commenting on Sitharaman speaking to the ITC Chairman, Gowda told ET that the government procurement was the only way to protect and encourage farmers for major millets like ragi, jowar and bajra (pearl millet). Demand pull from the private sector could help with other minor millets.

With the year 2023 declared as the International Year of Millets by the UN, ITC is also pursuing Mission Millets to bring millets into the mainstream by aiming to educate consumers and empower farmers.

The Centre has also been providing millets/coarse grains (Sri Anna) to states at a subsidized price of Re 1 per kg for preparation of supplementary food under the wheat-based nutrition programme (WBNP) and providing them to pregnant women, lactating mothers and children below six years of age. Sri Anna is known to have high nutrient content and helps tackle anaemia and other micro-nutrient deficiencies common among women and children.

At their meeting with the FM in Delhi on Thursday, the two Karnataka ministers had requested her to take an early decision on the State's memorandum seeking drought relief. The revenue minister urged her to release funds from the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) early, highlighting the urgency due to prevailing farmers' distress. "Timely payment of assistance to farmers would partly relieve their distress," Gowda told ET, soon after the meeting.

He has also asked her to consider the data the government submitted on the numbers of small and marginal farmers. The available data with the Union Government, he added, underestimated the size of the small & marginal farmers.

The government, the minister said, had placed Aadhar-lined alternate data sets to substantiate that 70% of farmers in Karnataka were small and marginal in nature.

The CM told the media in Mysuru, last week, that the government has sought Rs 17,900 crore towards drought relief. The Central Drought Study Team, he said, had not given a report even after a month and the Centre had also not responded to the government's request.