Nellore: Lockdown holding up tobacco auction process

Nellore: With the administration busy addressing the Covid pandemic in the district, the prevailing conditions turned into a stumbling block to the tobacco farmers to sell their produce which is ready for auctions.

The farmers are facing a difficult situation with the auction process stopped due to lockdown. The auction process started in DC Palli and Kaligiri tobacco auction centres on February 14 and was stopped due to lockdown. In fact, by this time, 50 pc of the auction should have been done. But, farmers say, only 5 pc of the auction has been completed and still 95 pc stocks to be cleared are stored at the storerooms of the farmers.

There are 3,135 barrens under Kaligiri and DC Palli auction centres in Nellore and 3,713 farmers have cultivated tobacco in 15 mandals last season in 7,468 hectares against the permitted area of 9,210 hectares.

A majority (99.5 pc) of farmers in the district are cultivating Siri variety of FCV tobacco for many decades as the crop is more remunerative when compared to non-tobacco crops.

Tobacco has been grown in around 5,500-6,000 hectare this year and there have been restrictions on the cultivating area due to downfall in sales across the country. Tobacco Board officials have warned the farmers to confine themselves to the approved area for getting their investments.

During 2018-19, farmers had suffered huge losses due to quality issues where majority stocks of 2.5 lakh kg were sold as low grade. The Tobacco Board had permitted 10.4 million kilos of tobacco during the season this time. Farmers hoped to recover their losses this year, but the lockdown situation made them hapless.

During the last quarter of 2019, the district received intermittent heavy rains that led to tobacco leaves getting discoloured.

The Tobacco Board stopped the auction process since March 20 and the lockdown has been extended up to May 3. Since February 14, only 5 pc of stocks were cleared during the auction at the DC Palli Auction centre area till now.

As such 95 per cent stocks are still with the farmers. The State government had started procuring paddy and other pulses from April 16 through Agriculture Marketing Committees.

"Due to delay in conducting auctions, quality of tobacco is likely to get affected and it could finally be put for sale as low grade," rued Gali Narasapanaidu, president of Tobacco Farmers Welfare Association.

Further, Balamreddy Venkateswara Reddy, a farmer from Venkataraopalli, said that 50 pc of auction process should have been done by this time during normal conditions.

He demanded that the government help the farmers to conduct auctions by following social distancing and taking other mandatory measures at the centres to clear the unsold stocks. Otherwise, the farmers would suffer severe losses this year too, he explained.