Telangana: Paddy procurement delay makes farmers nervous

Hyderabad: Repeated advisories by ministers that farmers should go in for alternative crops other than paddy during rabi season and if they go in for paddy the farmers are doing it on their own risk is causing great anxiety among farmers. This caution was reiterated on Saturday by Agriculture Minister Niranjan Reddy.

It has been seen that even during the present kharif season, the procurement process has been very slow. The state-level officials are tight-lipped over the delay in procurement. On the other hand, farmers waiting for days for their harvest to be picked up have raised the hackles of the farmers.

Incidents like the Kamareddy farmer, who died while waiting for his turn to sell his paddy, added fuel to the fire of the anxious farmers and the procurement process of fine variety paddy took the colour of a law-and-order problem warranting intervention of the police.

Speaking to The Hans India, a senior official in the Agriculture department attributed the crisis to the delay in the procurement process. In some districts, rice mills started the procurement process only after a week. Even the Civil Supplies Department (CSD) delayed the process leading to further complicating the issue, he explained.

Rice millers said they have reopened the mills after completing the servicing of the machines and hence the delay. This has led to a mismatch between the daily arrival of stocks to the markets and the quantity of stock that rice millers can lift in a day.

An official from the marketing department, on condition of anonymity, said, due to delay in starting the procurement process, stocks are more than the capacity the rice millers can lift on a daily basis. "This has forced the farmers to wait for long and their anger led to protests and Rasta Roko in parts of Nalgonda district," he said.

"There are about 188 centres to procure fine varieties of paddy from the farmers in the Nalgonda district. But, as of now, only 50 per cent of them are fully functional," he added.

Meanwhile, farmers feel that the delay of the Civil Supplies and rice millers to keep them waiting for days might be a ploy to force them to sell the paddy at a lesser price fixed by the bidding rice millers.

This situation made Nalgonda Superintendent of Police AV Ranganath visit the place to take stock of the situation. He spoke to rice millers and farmers. The SP reportedly warned the rice millers not to procure paddy at a lesser price. He made it clear that they cannot unilaterally decide the quality of paddy. It must be done in the presence of the officials of the Agriculture department.