Red gram farmers stage protest

Narayanpet: The Red gram farmers in Narayanpet district once again came on to the roads and protested against the market yard and Agriculture department officials for not giving them tokens so as to enable them to sell their produce at the government procurement centres.

While staging a protest in Narayanpet on Tuesday, the farmers demanded the district collector to immediately take cognisance of their demands and urged him to direct the concerned departments to immediately issue the tokens to the red gram farmers.

"This is for the third time that the red gram farmers have protested against the indifferent attitude of the procurement agencies and the district Agriculture department authorities. This time, the red gram production in Narayanpet and surrounding region has increased, and the farmers were hoping to get better prices for their produce.

However, the State and Central governments are playing with the lives of farmers and not providing them support price. We are demanding the government to consider the request of farmers to procure whatever produce they bring to the market," observed a protesting farmer.

Two months ago, the farmers protested against the government's norm that only those farmers, who have land below 5 acres will only be considered for procurement.

However, Union Minister Kishan Reddy had promised the farmers to liberalise the norms and promised to procure more produce from the farmers.

Even though, the Central government had agreed to procure additional red gram, the district authorities are causing trouble by not giving them tokens, the farmers alleged.