Cong reiterates its paddy purchase date extension demand

Raipur, January 14, 2012

The Congress has once again demanded from the government to extend paddy procurement date considering hiatus in the procedures due to recent spell of unseasonal rains. “Why is the government delaying in declaring the extended date when it claims to be a well-wisher of the farmers,” asked former PCC president Dhanendra Sahu and party’s business cell president Kanhaiyya Agrawal on Saturday.

Slamming the government for ignoring the rain factor during paddy purchase and not constructing adequate number of sheds to store the procured paddy, the duo said the farmers had to incur huge loss.

“The government has not yet ensured quick transportation of procured paddy from societies to godowns. The societies have limited storing facilities. Hence, when it rained, the paddy of the farmers queuing outside societies dampened completely. Similarly, the farmers who have stored their paddy in their fields too got dampened. This condition could have been averted if the government would have taken proactive measures to protect paddy from rains,” they said.

Terming the government anti-farmer, they said, “It has always posed indifferent towards farmers. When we raised the issues of duplicate fertilisers and pesticides, it remained silent. We also urged the government to check black marketing of fertilisers, but no action was taken. Again, we pointed out that the farmers were getting sub-standard seeds due to corruption in Seed Development Corporation, the government refrained from taking action against the guilty ones. Therefore, the farmers are facing inconvenience under BJP regime,” they said.

On farmers’ suicide they said the government should tell the exact number of farmers who had killed themselves in 2009 and 2010, when the suicidal incidents had reached to 12405.

“The farmers have realised that the government would neither provide them sufficient agricultural facilities nor compensation package during floods and drought. Hence, many of them are leaving this profession and switching to other sectors. Many have even migrated to other states,” they said.

On landless farmers, they advised the government again to maintain their records. “In Chhattisgarh, many farmers do not own land, but they crops by taking lands from other on rent. However, the benefits of farm sector are being given to those who are mere agricultural land owners but not farmers by profession. The landless farmers are completely ignored and consequently their financial condition is worsening day-by-day,” they said.