BHUBANESWAR: Paddy has turned into the seed of discontent in Odisha. Thousands of farmers, instead of selling their harvest – produced with their sweat and blood - are up in arms against the State Government that swears by their welfare.
A new centralised online token system that was supposed to put an end to their exploitation at the hands of middlemen and unscrupulous miller agents has left the farming community in the lurch as they stare at another season of distress sale.
The Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Department’s online system – replacing the old mechanism of collecting tokens from primary agricultural societies (PACs) – has not only sent the farmers on the warpath but also exposed how the entire procurement mechanism is ill-equipped.
In Sambalpur and Bargarh districts, not a single grain of paddy has been collected from farmers four days after procurement started. In Kalahandi, the millers virtually held the district administration to ransom before the administration served an ultimatum for signing of the agreement. In Koraput, farmers have no clue about the online token system as there is very little awareness.
In many districts, mandis are not ready yet though farmers are. In other places, tokens have reached the farmers but crop is yet to be harvested. Cut a long story short, the entire chain of administrative machinery mandated to smoothen the paddy procurement process has been found wanting even as districts administrations have simply failed.
Meanwhile, the State Assembly saw walkout by Opposition BJP and Congress members over the issue even as the State Government tried to assure that token system introduced at State level is a step towards transparency and the situation will improve considerably during next three months.
The issue cropped up during admissibility of an adjournment motion notice brought by BJP with the members demanding that the old system should be re-introduced and the online system discarded as it has not helped the farmers. Initiating the debate, BJP member Jayanarayan Mishra said not a quintal of paddy has so far been purchased by the Government agencies in Sambalpur and other Western Odisha districts which has forced the farmers to go for distress sale.
Criticising the Government for not starting the procurement till now even though it was announced to be done from November 15, leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) Narasingh Mishra alleged that the Government has done it deliberately to facilitate large scale corruption.
Government officials, mill owners and middlemen have joined hands to loot the farmers, Mishra said, claiming that it is a scam of thousands of crores. If the district procurement committees had decided to start procurement by November 15, why tokens were not issued seven days before, he asked.
In his response, Minister for Food Supply and Consumer Welfare Ranendra Pratap Swain said the process has started only three days back and the procurement system will be on track in three months. Reiterating that no miller trader will be entertained in procurement, he said marginal and small farmers will get the correct price for paddy.
He said that kharif procurement has already started from Bargarh and Sambalpur districts and it will be started in other districts soon. He said 20,738 farmers from Bargarh, Kalahandi, Koraput, Sambalpur, Subarnapur, Nuapada and Bolangir districts have been sent SMS messages to be ready with paddy at the mandis for procurement. The total amount to be procured is 15.6 lakh tonne, he said.