TIRUVARUR/NAGAPATTINAM: The state government should act on a war footing to move the procured paddy stored in bags at direct paddy purchase centres (DPCs) to godowns so that the harvested paddy kept in the open could be procured as well, said AIADMK general secretary and Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami on Wednesday.
Addressing media persons in Tiruvarur after inspecting the paddy kept in the open by the farmers outside the DPCs in Thanjavur and Tiruvarur districts, Palaniswami said that the farmers have been complaining to him that the paddy brought by them were not procured at DPCs for days together.
“Due to this, the paddy heaped in the open got damaged due to the rain. As procured paddy in thousands of bags continues to remain in the DPCs, the authorities there are unable to procure the paddy brought by the farmers,” the former chief minister added. In some DPCs, the procured paddy got affected in the rain and has started sprouting, he further said. “Who is to bear these losses? It is a loss to the government.”
The opposition leader said the loadmen at DPCs said they are weighing only around 800 to 900 paddy bags per day. However the food minister told the state Assembly that the government has been procuring 2,000 bags per day. The minister had given wrong information to the Assembly, Palaniswami alleged.
Calling the government incompetent, the former CM said that if the production was high, the government should have planned accordingly and have been prepared to procure the paddy harvest from farmers.
Pointing out that it is the rainy season, Palaniswami said farmers cannot bring paddy within the moisture norm of 17% for procurement. “When the AIADMK was in power we procured paddy with 20-22% moisture level,” he said, adding that the government should have got relaxation in moisture norms by now by writing to the Union government. “The food minister had in the Assembly said the government was yet to get the norms relaxed,” Palaniswami said.
The government’s priority should now be procurement of paddy from farmers and providing compensation to those whose paddy has been damaged by rain, he stressed. He also demanded the government start enumeration of crops damaged in the recent rain.
Later in the day, Palaniswami also visited a DPC near Kilvelur in Nagapattinam district and interacted with farmers there, who demanded the immediate shifting of the paddy bags stocked up on the premises and the supply of meters to measure the moisture content in the harvested crop.
