Paddy farmers face urea shortage, cough up more

Srikakulam: Woes of farmers are not yet solved in Srikakulam during the current kharif season even in the native district of the Minister for Agriculture K Atchannaidu.

Institutional drawbacks are still continuing in the agriculture wing and farmers are adapting to compromise with the issues as they are unable to fight against the system to solve the problem as it is an unorganised sector.

The main difficulty for the farmers in current kharif season is non-availability of essential chemical fertiliser urea which is required for paddy crops at this stage. Farmers of different villages in Amadalavalasa, Jalumuru, Narasannapeta, Polaki, L N Peta, Hiramandal, Kotabommali, Tekkali, Santhabommali, Gara, Ponduru and other mandals across the district are depending on private dealers to purchase urea as it is not available at Rythu Bharosa Kendras (RBK) in the district sufficiently.

The private dealers are collecting Rs 75 to Rs 100 more than the price fixed for the urea at RBKs and the private dealers are also putting conditions on farmers to purchase other varieties of fertilisers and pesticides to get urea which is an additional burden on farmers.

Another issue is e-crop registration which is not yet completed in the district as land details of farmers are not tallied with the online e-crop registration system.

There is a standard system for registration of e-crop. With the assistance of revenue staff, agriculture wing officials need to collect Aadhaar number, bank account details, connected phone number, land documents and crop variety from the farmer. Later, the officials need to take photograph of the farmer at his crop field and upload the same in e-crop portal.

Then the farmer receives a confirmation message to his phone number on e-crop and after completion of the process, farmers are eligible to get subsidy, compensation etc. from the government. But during the YSRCP government in the name of re-survey of lands, group numbers were issued as LP numbers to the group of pieces of farmfield situated in a single stretch. But these details did not properly appear on the revenue “web land” as a result e-crop registration turned difficult. More than 40 per cent of farmers are unable to register their details in the e-crop portal in the district.