Every grain of paddy handed to a rice miller comes with an obligation — and Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Anumula has made clear that obligation will now be enforced to the last rupee. Chairing a high-level review of the Civil Supplies Department alongside Civil Supplies Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy at MCRHRD (Marri Chenna Reddy Human Resource Development Institute) on Wednesday, 12 August 2026, the Chief Minister issued blunt orders to officials: recover every pending due from rice millers, without exception.

Zero tolerance for wilful defaulters

The Chief Minister drew a sharp distinction between millers who operate with genuine commercial intent and those who deliberately evade payments. 'We will be cooperative with those who run mills with a business outlook,' the CMO post stated, 'but we will deal strictly with those who attempt wilful evasion.' That warning carries a concrete consequence: millers who turn into chronic defaulters will lose their paddy allocations entirely. The government will reassign that paddy to Women's Self Help Groups (SHGs), transferring milling responsibilities to them in place of the habitual non-payers.

Blame, arrears, and the previous government

The review also turned combative on the question of accountability. The Chief Minister expressed sharp displeasure at what he described as the previous government's role in allowing dues worth thousands of crores to accumulate — and then, he alleged, attempting to pin that liability on the current administration. Officials were told that some recovery progress has already been made, but that partial progress is not the finish line. A formal set of procedures for dues recovery must now be drafted, submitted to a Cabinet sub-committee for examination, and then converted into government policy.

Silo bags and a five-district pilot for storage

Beyond dues, the review tackled a recurring seasonal headache: where to store the flood of paddy that arrives each harvest. The Chief Minister directed officials to launch a pilot project for silo bag storage in Nalgonda, Suryapet, Nizamabad, Peddapalli, and Kamareddy — the five districts that receive the heaviest paddy inflows. Under this plan, 50 to 100 acres of land per constituency will be allocated for silo bag construction, managed by SHGs. A joint meeting of ministers from the Revenue, Civil Supplies, and Women's Welfare departments will be convened to plan the build-out.

The CM also asked officials to explore platforms at VBG Ram Ji for constructing wide plat-forms with German tents for paddy storage. At the ground level, officials were told to proactively identify private godowns, community halls, old theatres, and sheds at mandal and village level that could be leased for storage ahead of the next season.

Who was in the room

The review brought together CM's Principal Secretary V. Seshadri, TG Civil Supplies Commissioner Stephen Ravindra, and South India Rice Millers Association President Thudi Devender Reddy, alongside several senior officials — signalling that both the bureaucracy and the industry body were put on notice simultaneously.

The Cabinet sub-committee's verdict on the recovery framework, and whether the silo bag pilot can be operationalised before the next peak procurement season, will determine whether this review translates from a stern directive into structural change.