BHUBANESWAR: The BJP on Friday targeted the State government over mismanagement of mandis and online token system which has posed serious problems for the farmers. State BJP Kisan Morcha president Pradip Purohit said that field officials are busy in election management, leaving paddy procurement at the mercy of rice millers. “There has been no change in the system even after the fact finding team from the Centre pointed out serious lapses and irregularities in the decentralised paddy procurement in the State last year,” Purohit told mediapersons here.
While farmers were not issued sufficient tokens denying them the opportunity to sell their produce within the procurement period, the former BJP MLA said that all designated paddy purchase centres are miller-driven and farmers are forced to forgo the cost for at least 8-10 kg paddy per bag which is called ‘katni chatni’ in local language. He said the quality control process was almost non-existent.
The State government has allowed millers to perform all mandi operations such as supply of used gunny bags, transportation of paddy, loading and other labour works. This is against the guidelines of the Centre. Besides, the farmers were neither returned their gunny bags nor paid the bag cost for which the Centre also has a provision, Purohit said. Alleging that the ruling BJD had collected Rs 500 crore from rice millers to meet party’s expenses for panchayat elections, the BJP leader from Bargarh said farmers are being exploited by the millers.
Though the official date for opening mandis was November 1, the primary agriculture cooperative societies (PACS) deliberately delayed mandi operations by over three weeks as a result of which, farmers were forced to sell their produce to millers at Rs 1,000 per quintal as against the MSP of Rs 1,940 per quintal. Meanwhile, around 3,000 tokens of farmers have lapsed and they are not sure when fresh tokens will be issued. As many as 20,000 tokens lapsed during last kharif marketing season due to delay in paddy procurement.