Nalgonda: Poor transportation facilities costing farmers dearly

Nalgonda: Poor storage and transportation facilities are haunting paddy farmers in Nalgonda district. Delay in unloading paddy produce at procurement centres, no proper storage, delay in transporting purchased produce to the mills are the major issues causing heavy losses to the farmers.

As many as 376 paddy procurement centres were opened in Nalgonda district, of which, 150 centres were organised by Primary Agriculture Cooperative Society (PACS) and the remaining are by Indira Kranthi Patham (IKP). Paddy procurement was started on April 6 and reportedly should be concluded by May 15 or 20.

In the initial days of paddy purchase, there were no weighing scales and gunny bags at procurement centres and they were provided after farmers' protest and with the initiation of local MLAs.

Later, delay in unloading at procurement centres has dragged the purchasing for another 20 days, which increased overheads and losses to the farmers due to sudden rains in the past two months. Not only these, poor transportation of procured paddy from purchasing centers to rice mills added further to the farmers' woes.

In the first week of purchase, transport contractor had arranged the recommended 10 lorries at IKP centres to transport paddy from procurement centres to mills. But later the lorry owners denied engaging their vehicles quoting hike in diesel prices. Only four to five lorries were available transportation.

Farmers lamented that there was another two to three days delay in unloading the paddy at the mills or godowns, dragging the entire process to from May 15 to June 11.

Meanwhile, the unexpected rains have submerged the paddy at market yards, making the farmers to lose five to 20 bags.

A woman farmer from Annaparthi village of Nalgonda mandal, Adullah Prema Latha, speaking to The Hans India, said that she brought paddy to the procurement centre at Arjalabavi in the limits of Nalgonda municipality on May 6 and the paddy was purchased on June 10. She brought 300 bags of paddy and lost 20 bags due to unexpected rains in last month, she lamented.

Gollaguda PACS CEO and in-charge of Arjaalabavi procurement centre Ananth Reddy admitted that delay in transportation has dragged paddy purchase to another 20 days and same situation has prevailed in almost all paddy procurement centres organised by PACS and IKP in the district.