The Telangana Kisan Congress has charged the government with failing to procure paddy and failure to protect farmers from millers who were under-weighing procured paddy at the rice mills.
In a representation to the Civil Supplies Commissioner, Telangana Kisan Congress Chairman S. Anvesh Reddy said that 90% of the Yasangi produce was in the market but the procurement was far below that. Unseasonal rains damaging paddy at the procurement centres had left the farmers in the lurch. But the government was unmoved, he said.
He alleged that the track sheet was not being provided to farmers after the procurement to escape responsibility and also indulge in corruption. Once the track sheet was given the farmers won’t have any responsibility for their produce and it was considered procured and taken to rice mills. They had nothing to do with millers as well. However, in the absence of track sheets farmers were forced to wait for another receipt and that was where officials and millers were colluding to under-weigh the produce. This was nothing but the government itself encouraging corruption to benefit millers with farmers losing money.
Mr. Reddy said despite the government’s repeated assurances that wet paddy would be procured at the same cost as normal paddy it was not being done. The government failed to provide facilities at the market yards for the farmers to save their produce from unseasonal rains. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao also promised to procure wet paddy at agriculture fields but the assurance had not turned into any direction to the officials.
He said the Congress had been reminding the government to make arrangements for procurement and save the farmers from nature’s vagaries but the government had just ignored the suggestions.
Earlier in the day, the Kisan Congress tried to stage a protest at the Civil Supplies Commissioner’s office but the police took them into custody and moved them to Bolarum police station.
