BHUBANESWAR : In a startling revelation, Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare minister Krushna Chandra Patra on Monday said he was asked by a senior bureaucrat to not go deep into the paddy procurement process and try to curb the practice of ‘katni-chhatni’ by rice millers during purchase of the produce from farmers at the mandis.
Stating that the government is not getting desired cooperation from officers to end the rice millers’ control over paddy procurement, Patra said, “To my utter surprise, a senior IAS officer advised me not to meddle in the matter and leave it to the farmers and millers to sort it out.”
“I asked the officer what about our promise to the farmers that we will not allow the evil practice of katni-chhati to continue. If this is the mindset of the administration, it will take more time for the government to change it,” Patra said.
He said the government will take action against officials irrespective of their positions if they did not change their mindset and were hand-in-glove with rice millers. Those millers who will not fall in line will also be blacklisted, Patra warned.
With reports about non-lifting of paddy by millers coming from different parts of the state as farmers are unwilling to concede to their demand of a cut from the special input subsidy, Patra told reporters here that registered millers in some districts have been refusing to budge on the matter.
The rice millers are openly pointing out that while farmers are getting input subsidy of Rs 800 over and above the minimum support price of Rs 2,300 per quintal of paddy, they are getting nothing. They want the katni-chhatni practice to continue under which the farmers have to sacrifice the price of at least 6 to 7 kg of paddy, the minister said.
Farmers of Dhenkanal, the home district of the minister, are facing a similar problem as millers are not cooperating. As per reports from Kamakhyanagar, mandis are closed as millers have refused to lift paddy until their demand is met.
Meanwhile, criticising the minister for showing helplessness, senior BJD leader and Kendrapara MLA Ganeswar Behera dared Patra to name the officer who advised him not to interfere in the ongoing impasse.
Taking a jibe at the double-engine government of the BJP, leader of Congress legislature party Ramachandra Kadam said now farmers are facing double katni-chhatni - one from millers and the other from the government.