BHUBANESWAR: Even as the farmers’ demand for upward revision of procurement price of processed paddy seeds is yet to be considered by the State Government, the decision of Odisha State Seeds Corporation (OSSC) to pay the seed cost after obtaining report from seed testing laboratory has been strongly protested by registered growers.
As per the agreement with seed growing farmers, initial payment to the tune of 60 per cent of the seed cost has to be paid within seven days of receiving certified seeds. The second and final payment was to be made within one month of the receipt of the report from laboratory. However, the corporation has directed its seed processing officers (SPOs) to release the dues of seed growers on the basis of the laboratory’s report. In further violation of the memorandum of understanding with seed growers, the corporation has directed the SPOs to debit the packaging cost including the cost of the polymer bag from the seed cost payable to the farmers. Terming the corporation’s decision as anti-farmer, several registered seed growers including Madhusudan Pradhan, Umakanta Tripathy and Dillip Baral have jointly petitioned Agriculture Secretary Sourabh Garg requesting him to direct OSSC to act as per the agreement.
“For more than three decades, the corporation had been supplying bags for packaging processed paddy and non-paddy seeds. Later, the cost of bag was included in the cost of certified seeds determined by the seed pricing committee headed by Agriculture Secretary. This has been done for the current kharif and rabi season,” said Baral a farmer from Nimapara.
The State Government has created a corpus of Rs 100 crore for procurement of certified seeds from farmers who have registered with the corporation. Payment to the seed growers is made from corpus fund and dues of the farmers are paid directly to their accounts. As the seed growers are financially weak, withdrawal of initial payment will hit them hard, he added. Meanwhile, the State Seed Pricing Committee has decided the cost of certified paddy seed at Rs 1,937 per quintal while the average production cost comes to Rs 2,344 a quintal. As the State Government has been urging the Centre to increase the minimum support price (MSP) of paddy to Rs 2,930 per quintal, a hike of nearly 90 per cent over the existing price of Rs 1,550, the seed growers of the State had requested the Agriculture Department last month to increase the procurement cost of certified seeds.