Ryots seek smooth paddy lifting operations

​Luxettipet: Not one or two, the paddy farmers are facing several problems like delay in depositing the proceeds of the sale into their bank accounts, lack of coordination among officials, threat of paddy kept at purchase centers getting wet due to rains and delay in lifting paddy from them.

The farmers are requesting the officials to implement remedial measures keeping in view of past experiences.
Paddy was cultivated in 36,678 acres during rabi season in the district and the farmers reaped bumper harvest because of favourable weather conditions.

The government seeks to buy at least 9.5 lakh quintals of paddy from farmers. But the problem is that the officials has entrusted the task of running paddy purchase centres to inexperienced staff.

The farmers should be paid money as per the information sent by the paddy purchase centers on tablet PCs. But, the civil supplies officials are disbursing amount to farmers only after receiving documents like truck sheets and others from the farmers.

The delay in online recording of truck sheets and other data is attributed to the inexperience of the staff in handling the tablet PCs at the purchase centers and lack of internet facility.

Computers and computer operators should be provided at various revenue divisional offices to feed the data furnished by the farmers into the computers.

Another problems faced by the farmers is that Rs 25 to Rs 35 is collected as hamali charges at the purchase centers. Unable to afford the charges, the farmers themselves are the tasks supposed to be done by hamalis.

There were several instances where paddy bags remained uncleared at the paddy purchase centers due to lack of coordination between officials, millers and farmers, shortage of gunny bags and tarpaulins.

As this year’s produce is more than the previous rabi, the officials should take steps to clear the stocks at the purchase centres as early as possible after a sale.

A nodal official at the division level should be appointed to coordinate paddy purchase operations with the officials concerned.

The government has fixed Rs 1,510 for Grade-A variety of paddy and Rs 1,470 for the ordinary variety. As there are specifications in purchasing paddy with moisture content, the farmers have been advised to bring the paddy to the purchase center after drying it.

The farmers should submit pahani photocopy and copies of Aadhaar card, bank account pass book and so on. They are warned against submitting zero balance bank account pass books.

In Mancherial district, there are 170 paddy purchase centers, including those run by the PACS (76), DCMS (30), IKP (58) and ITDA (06).

The farmers alleged that the paddy purchased remained uncleared so far, which were being exposed to rain and gusty winds.

In fact, 60,000 bags of paddy at 10 paddy purchase centers of the IKP, 34,000 bags at the seven PACS, 15,000 bags at five DCMS centers remained uncleared. The farmers have been appealing to officials and elected people’s representatives to take urgent steps to get the paddy transported to rice mills.

Talking to The Hans India, District Rural Development Agency Officer B Venkat said that measures would be initiated to ensure that no inconvenience will be caused to farmers at the purchase centers.

Care is being taken to ensure that adequate number of gunny bags and tarpaulins are stocked at the purchase centers and he ensured that all officials work with coordination. He appealed to farmers to ensure that there was no glitch in operations of lifting the paddy.