JEYPORE: Paddy procurement has hit a roadblock due to unavailability of adequate trucks to lift harvested paddy from farmers in Koraput district.
Only a quarter of the harvested crop has been lifted so far with just eight days remaining before mandis close in the district for the rabi season.
The administration had scheduled to run the mandis in the district from June 2 but full-scale procurement began only after June 10 across 74 mandis. Local millers refused to take rabi paddy due to space constraints, following which the administration engaged millers from Balangir and Kalahandi to lift paddy. However, the outside millers depend on local Jeypore trucks for transportation which is insufficient.
With only 50 to 60 trucks available daily for transportation against the required 200, the delay in lifting of stocked paddy is adding to the woes of the farmers. The main supplier, Jeypore Truck Association has only 120 trucks with half deployed in Balangir and Kalahandi for unloading. Availability of outside trucks is also scarce. Till Thursday, only 4,34,245 quintal paddy from 4,680 farmers was procured against the target of 7,36,167 quintal from 16,000 farmers.
Needless to point, farmers are worried as the mandis will close by June 30. Farmers from Jeypore, Kundra, Borigumma and Kotpad approached Jeypore sub-collector, CSO and LAMPS authorities and expressed concern over the issue and sought intervention.
Jeypore sub-collector A Sasya Reddy informed media that the administration is aware of the transportation issue. “We are in touch with RTO and other agencies to engage more trucks from different areas in the paddy procurement process. We assure the farmers that all their paddy stock will be lifted in the scheduled time,” she added.