BARGARH: With lakhs of paddy bags waiting to be sold, farmers are peeved over slow pace of procurement of kharif harvest in Padampur sub-division of Bargarh district. Paddy procurement in the sub-division, which has 18 market yards and 633 paddy procurement centres began along with the rest of the district on November 21. However, sacks of paddy lying in the open over delay in the procurement process has the farmers worried.
Over nine lakh bags of paddy are lying unsold at market yards in Rajbodasambar, Paikmal, Jharbandh, Sohela, Gaisilet and Bijepur under Padampur RMC. While paddy in Padampur which is categorised as common paddy has MSP of Rs 2,040, due to delay in procurement, farmers have started selling their produce through middlemen at much lower prices. “The middlemen are offering Rs 1,500-Rs 1,600 per quintal to farmers who have tokens and Rs 1,300-Rs 1,400 to those without tokens. They are being forced to sell their paddy as the stock may get damaged in the present weather conditions,” farmer leader, Ramesh Mahapatra said.
While Padampur has no direct connectivity to national highway, most of the procurement centres in Paikmal and Jharbandh blocks of the sub-division are located in remote areas. The millers are reluctant to procure paddy from the region fearing high transportation cost, said Mahapatra.
“During the last season, procurement dwindled due to reduced productivity caused by drought. However, owing to a bumper yield this season, the farmers were expecting to sell their produce as soon as possible due to lack of proper storage facilities.” He said negligence of millers and the district administration has delayed the procurement process.
Padampur sub-collector Trilochan Patra said procurement has been delayed in the last few days due to discrepancies in the data of lifting vehicles in the PPAS system. “Otherwise 80,000-90,000 bags of paddy are lifted from Padampur marketyards everyday on an average. We have discussed with the farmers in this regard on Monday and will regularise the procurement process shortly,” he said.
Mahapatra said farmers of the sub-division have been assured procurement will be expedited within a week. “If the district administration fails to keep its word, we will be forced to launch a protest,” he warned.
For the ongoing kharif season, so far as many as 1,40,130 farmers in the district have been verified for procurement against 1,40, 619 who registered. Similarly, a target has been set to procure 57 lakh quintal paddy. So far, 45,52,997.19 quintal paddy has already been procured from 93,220 farmers in the district.