BHUBANESWAR: With only two weeks left for paddy procurement to end and secretaries of the Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS) turning a deaf ear to the problems, farmers with lapsed tokens are running from pillar to post to get their stocks sold. Worse, officials overseeing the procurement process have no answers to their concerns.
A nexus of millers and officials of the Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare department has made the paddy procurement automation system (P-PAS) a mockery by allowing unscrupulous traders and landless farmers to snatch away the benefits from genuine registered farmers. The common refrain of the PACS secretaries who control the paddy procurement business is that the designated millers are not lifting the stocks available with them as they have not received miller authority slip (MAS).
After generation of MAS, PACS tagged to the millers receive society authority slip (SAS) from the Civil Supplies officer(CSO)-cum-district manager for purchase of paddy. If one complains to the CSO that his paddy is not procured even after the appointed date, the officer shifts the blame to the miller. But if sources are to be believed, millers are not lifting stocks from the mandis as the CSOs have not issued miller authority slips.
Procurement is controlled by the Food Supplies department and the Cooperation department has little role to play. The millers are playing to the tunes of the CSOs who tag them to mandis and decide the quantum of paddy to be allocated for custom milling. Sources said with the Secretary of the department being the final authority, the CSOs act according to his instruction.
Nirakar Senapati, a farmer of Musang village of Tihidi block in Bhadrak district, could not sell his 75 quintal of paddy as his token lapsed. “I am least concerned about the system or issue of MAS/SAS. The government is bound to procure as I have received a token issued by the Food Supplies department,” he said.Faced with a similar situation, Binay Pradhan of Basantpur village under Narsingpur block of Cuttack district said it is a vicious circle. All functionaries and officials concerned are hand-in-glove.
The State Cabinet has decided that the government will procure whatever paddy comes to the mandi from registered farmers. The government has procured 55.74 lakh tonne till March 14 as against a target of 63 lakh tonne of kharif paddy. In most of the places in coastal districts, the window for procurement has been closed with circulation of fake news that the government has reduced the procurement target. The State government has fixed a tentative target to procure 77 lakh tonne paddy in the 2021-22 kharif marketing season. Announcing the food procurement policy, Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra had said that there is no bar on procurement of any higher quantum if more paddy comes to the mandis from registered farmers.