Monday, November 29, 2010

Procurement woes for K’handi farmers

Expressbuzz, Nov 29, 2010
BHAWANIPATNA: Farmers of the district are spending sleepless nights over the delay in paddy procurement. It was targeted to procure 4,80,000 metric tonne (MT) of paddy this season.


Though it was decided to start procurement at regulated marketing committee (RMC) mandis from November 15, it was delayed till 21 and till date only 5,328 quintals of paddy have been purchased against 5 lakh quintals procured by this time last year.

Against 84 mandis identified for procurement, many are yet to start functioning.

The district administration had made special arrangements for hassle-fee procurement. To monitor the process, Revenue and Agriculture department officials and tehsildars were entrusted with the work as nodal officers.

A round-the-clock control room was opened in the Collectorate. Despite all this, the procurement has been erratic much to the disappointment of the farmers.

Besides the delay, they are also lamenting about the fair average quality (FAQ) norm set by the administration for paddy procurement.

Farmers of areas that were affected by flood and pest attacks are unable to meet the FAQ specification and some of them are facing hardship in transporting the paddy stock to the mandis from their villages in the absence of vehicles.

In many other areas, harvesting is nearing completion and farmers are storing paddy in ‘khalas’ waiting for mandis to open.

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