New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs Tuesday met Union Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal seeking his intervention in alleged malpractices in paddy procurement in Odisha which is causing huge losses to the farmers.
A delegation of saffron party MPs led by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan met Goyal and submitted a memorandum alleging that unscrupulous traders and landless/proxy farmers, who do not cultivate, in collusion with the members of Primary Agriculture Credit Societies, have been siphoning off the MSP support of the government by getting tokens for paddy sale.
“This Kharif Season about 5,54,679 acres of land have been identified as fake in the satellite survey for which proxy/non-farmers were eligible to receive MSP support to the tune of Rs 1,715 crore,” the BJP stated in the memorandum.
The BJP also highlighted the issue of short tenure of paddy procurement window in Odisha. Officially Kharif marketing season commences from October to facilitate smooth paddy procurement thereby giving a 151-day official window, the BJP said, adding that in Odisha, except for a few districts, mandis have not opened till now even in 3rd week of December.
“This is severely curtailing the actual procurement window to 40-43 days against the official 151-day window creating panic among small and marginal farmers,” the BJP said.
A nexus of millers and officials of the Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare department, the BJP said, has made the paddy procurement automation system (P-PAS) a mockery by allowing unscrupulous traders and landless farmers that snatches away the benefits from genuine registered farmers.
The BJP further alleged that the poor paddy farmers are forced to forgo 6-8 kg of paddy per quintal to the PPC brokers and agents – a practice which is locally dreaded as ‘katnichhatni’. Farmers are not getting MSP of Rs 1,940 per quintal due to ‘katnichhatni’, the BJP said.
PNN