SAMBALPUR: Over 50 farmers were taken into custody by police in Sambalpur and Bargarh districts for staging road block demanding procurement of paddy on the basis of crop cutting report, submitted by the Agriculture department. They were also protesting irregularities in the centralised token system.
In Sambalpur, the farmers under the banner of Paschim Odisha Krushak Sangathan Samanway Samiti (POKSSS) blocked NH-53 at Sindurpankh. Saroj, a farmers’ leader said issues relating to paddy procurement are different in districts but the decisions are taken in Bhubaneswar. He said the decision to procure paddy on per acre basis should be decided at the district level.
Similarly, the Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) must be entrusted the task of generating tokens for sale of paddy at mandis.
“Such decisions must be decentralised else the situation will only worsen in the coming days,” said the farmers.
In Bargarh, the farmers blocked NH-53 at Attabira due to which vehicular movement was affected. SDPO Deepak Kumar Gochhayat said as the road was blocked by the farmers for more than five hours, police had to take a few of them into preventive custody.
The farmers denied any talks with representatives of the district administration who arrived at the spot to hold discussions.
They said it is not justified to hold discussions when the farmers are being arrested.
The agitators said the Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare (FS&CW) Department has decided to procure 19 quintal of paddy per acre of land in irrigated belt and 13 quintal paddy per acre in non-irrigated belt during the current kharif season.
However, the decision will result in losses for the farmers as the yield per acre is usually higher than the given limit and they might have to sell the surplus crop at distress prices.
This apart, the farmers of the region are also disgruntled over the centralised token system.
Though majority of the farmers have harvested their crops, many of them have not received the tokens to sell their paddy.
Besides many others have received the token to sell the paddy on dates, much later than the possible paddy selling dates, they had mentioned during the registration.