Vijayawada, June 19: BJP All India General Secretary M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday said the Centre was contemplating arming the Tobacco Board with more powers to enable it to systematise the tobacco business in the country.Referring to the tobbaco glut in Andhra Pradesh market resulting in distress sale, Naidu said the State Trading Corporation (STC) would be provided with some financial assistance by the finance ministry to enable it to purchase further stocks from the farmers.He said due to heavy stock of last year's crop the STC could purchase only 3.5 million kg from the farmers and there was still heavy stocks with the farmers, besides last year's stock stc was also having financial problems.He said when Tobacco Board would be revamped the farmers would also to be restricted to grow the specified quantity, to avoid surplus stocks in the market.
The STC should also find out ways and means to export more quantity of tobacco to other countries and ``it should speed up the process before the on set uprains''.
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