BHUBANESWAR: Even after eight months of supplying certified paddy seeds to the Odisha State Seeds Corporation (OSSC), around 1,500 registered seed-growing farmers of the state are waiting for the promised input assistance of Rs 800 per quintal.
Around 150 farmers from different districts met the managing director of OSSC and the principal secretary of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare department, Arabinda Padhee on Saturday and expressed their anguish over the apathy of the state government.
The seed growing farmers constitute a fraction of the total 13 lakh farmers, who sold their surplus paddy to the state government under minimum support price. While other farmers have received their input assistance within 48 hours of delivery of paddy, the seed growers are still waiting for the aid. The seed-growing farmers have to spent an additional amount of Rs 700 to produce a quintal of certified seeds.
While the government fixed the price of normal paddy of fair average quality at Rs 2,300 per quintal, the price of certified paddy seeds was fixed at Rs 2,921 per quintal. The state cabinet, while approving the proposal of implementation of Samrudha Krushak Yojana for three years from 2024-5 to 2026-27 in October 2024, decided to provide input assistance of Rs 800 per quintal over and above the seed price of Rs 2,921 as fixed by the state seed pricing committee.
The Agriculture department is yet to release the input assistance to the State Seeds Corporation, which had placed a demand of Rs 20 crore to the directorate of Agriculture and Food Corporation in January this year. Padhee has taken a week’s time to sort out the issue with an assurance to the farmers that he will convey the matter to deputy chief minister-cum-Agriculture minister KV Singh Deo. Notably, the seed-producing farmers have been running from pillar to post as OSSC was functioning without a full-time managing director for the last 10 months.