The Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation (TNCSC) has set a target of 4.40 lakh tonnes for procurement of paddy from Thanjavur — the Rice Bowl of Tamil Nadu — during the Samba harvest season. But does the State have enough warehouses to store the grains and protect them from the vageries of the weather? News reports of wheat rotting in Food Corporation of India godowns in Haryana and Punjab besides being nibbled by rodents hit the headlines each year. That is attributed to the lack of sufficient warehouses because of which grains are often stored in the open under a tarpaulin sheet. How does Tamil Nadu manage its grain storage?
Fortunately, the State has a comparatively robust grain storage infrastructure, though most of the direct procurement centres function out of rented buildings. Farmers in Thanjavur and Tiruvarur districts say the existing infrastructure is inadequate and also complain of corruption at procurement centres, but there is no evidence to prove that paddy is left to rot . The TNCSC is the nodal agency for procuring paddy in the State under the decentralised system on behalf of the FCI. In Thanjavur district, during the peak harvest season, around 450 direct procurement centres are opened to procure paddy. Of them, only 117 centres have their own buildings. Tenders have been floated to build 19 more.
In Tiruvarur district, 111 direct procurement centres alone function out of their own buildings. Other centres operate from rental buildings or land where the system of Cover and Plinth (CAP) storage is adopted. When some of these buildings and areas fail to withstand heavy rains, the procurement staff cover the grains with tarpaulin sheets. However, there are instances of sudden downpour in January-February when the Samba procurement is at its peak — drenching the paddy harvest laid out in the open to dry, farmers say.
Sami Natarajan, district secretary of the Tamil Nadu Farmers Association (AIKS), says there is a need to build more procurement centres and augment the capacity of the existing ones with more concrete floors and fencing to bar cattle from entering. Besides the direct procurement centres, TNCSC officials rent out warehouses of Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) to store the procured paddy in Thanjavur and Tiruvarur districts before sending the bags to hulling agents throughout the State.
“In Tiruvarur, we engage four CWC warehouses with 50,000 tonnes capacity, the warehouse in Sundarakkottai Modern Rice mill with 25,000 capacity and another godown in Vilamal with 7,000 tonnes capacity to store the procured paddy,” says A Alagirisamy, the Senior Regional Manager (SRM) of TNCSC, Tiruvarur.
With the advent of harvesting machines, simultaneous harvest happens in vast areas, which results in heavy arrivals, making procurement and storage problematic. “As there is a restriction on hiring lorries only from the districts concerned to move the paddy from the procurement centres to the CAP storage or railway heads to load them in wagons, a glut of the paddy bags in the DPCs poses difficulty to staff and the farmers,” says S Chandrakumar, general secretary of TNCSC workers union (AITUC).
Besides, farmers need to grease the palms of the procurement staff. The bill clerk in charge of a procurement centre gets Rs 4,000 to Rs 4,500 per month, the helper Rs 3,000 and the loadmen Rs 1.39 paise per bag of 40 kg. To cover the ‘service charge’ they deduct a minimum of Rs 20 per bag before paying the farmer their due amount. To end the corruption hassle, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) had directed the FCI to instruct the procurement agencies to pay the farmers through the Electronic Clearance System (ECS). Sundara Vimalnathan, the secretary of Thanjavur District Cauvery Farmers Protection Association agrees that the long pending demand of farmers for ECS has been acceded. According to his outfit’s estimates, during the last Samba season, farmers had to pay a whopping Rs 132 crore as graft.