Bhubaneswar: A day after some BJD MPs met Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goel to expedite paddy evacuation and pay pending subsidy, a delegation of the BJP MPs of Odisha met the Minister on Tuesday and sought his personal intervention in directing the Odisha government to complete the procurement of all unsold paddy from the farmers at the earliest.
Apprising the Union Minister of the double standards of the state government, the delegation, led by Union Petroleum and Natural Gas and Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, said the Centre has procured 370 lakh ton of paddy from Odisha since 2014 at the Minimum Support Price (MSP) amounting to Rs 60,594 crore, deposited Rs 2000 to each registered farmer’s account every three months under PM-KISAN Yojana and made payment of Rs 4424.85 crores worth of insurance claims against crop failure to 20.94 lakh insured farmers under PM Fasal Bima Yojana.
But, the BJD government through its misleading and malicious statements about not receiving the Central financial support for paddy procurement has been conveniently trying to belie its own systematic failure in governance and management of agricultural and allied services to the farmers.
A memorandum submitted by the BJP MPs said despite this year’s better-than-expected harvest of paddy due to a favourable monsoon, the state government did not revise its ceiling of procurement of 19 quintal per acre of irrigated land and 13 quintal per acre of non-irrigated land. As a result, thousands of farmers were left with unsold paddy which they had to sell at half the price of MSP fixed by the Centre, i.e., Rs 1868 per quintal.
There have also been many cases reported in the local media where the farmers have been prohibited from selling due quantities of their harvest as per their landholding so as to favour a few political supporters of the ruling party at a heavy cost to many small and marginal farmers.
On the harassment of the farmers, the memorandum said the token supplied by the Civil Supplies department to the paddy procurement centres are becoming invalid due to delay in procurement as each token is valid for only 30 days. Many registered farmers do not receive the token at all due to delay in verification of their plot, bank account, Aadhaar card and irrigated land by the government, while some receive tokens for dates even before the harvest of paddy is possible.
Besides, the suffering of the farmers due to lack of logistic support in storage and transport of their harvest has compounded by mandi mafia operating in guise of brokers, agents, millers and other middle-men of the paddy procurement centres (PPCs) with the connivance of the officials. As a result, several farmers are unable to sell their produce in paddy procurement centres due to expired tokens and are forced to forego 4-6 kg of paddy per quintal to the procurement centre brokers and agents – a practice which is locally known as ‘katni chhatni’. It is a well known fact that the actual procurement at PPCs is much less than what is divulged by the state government.
Unable to afford the transportation and storage cost of their produce, the farmers of the state are forced to sell their harvest at throw-away prices in the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis. Without getting due remuneration, these farmers fall into an inescapable vicious cycle of debt and penury resulting in attempt to commit suicide.
Considering the above, it appears that the state government has institutionalised the exploitation of the paddy farmers through inefficient flawed procurements, lack of logistical and storage support and an immoral symbiosis with the mandi mafia operating in the guise of brokers, agents, millers and other middle-men at the procurement centres, the memorandum pointed out.
Also Read: BJD MPs Meet Union Minister, Seek Early Solution To Paddy Evacuation & Pending Subsidy
