The bonus for paddy crop declared by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has received a lukewarm response in the tribal region with the farmers of Kotpad demanding the amount to be raised to `300 per quintal.
At a meeting in Girla village of Kotpad block on Sunday, farmers of different villages expressed concern over low profit margin in paddy cultivation due to hike in the input cost.
They demanded Minimum Support Price (MSP) of paddy to be raised from the present `1,350 to ` 1,650 per quintal. The paddy farmers said their counterparts in neighbouring Chhattisgarh are getting bonus of `300 and the Odisha Government should follow the same policy.
The meeting was attended by over 100 farmer leaders of Kotpad including Sukria Pradhan, Biren Bisoi, Anak Patra, Umesh Berham. Kotpad is the rice bowl of southern Odisha where about one lakh hectares of farmland are under paddy cultivation.