Farmers on Friday dumped paddy at the Bhadrak collectorate, alleging a collapse of Odisha’s paddy procurement system.
Farmers arrived on tractors loaded with paddy and unloaded the crop inside the district collector’s office, around 120km from Bhubaneswar.
Pravat Mahalick, one of the aggrieved farmers, told The Telegraph: “I took a loan of around ₹2.5 lakh to grow paddy. By God’s grace, we had a bumper crop. But the state is yet to procure paddy from us. I went to the mandi in my area in Dhamnagar in Bhadrak, but for every quintal of paddy they deduct 8kg in the name of ‘katni chatni (illegal deductions)’, which is not acceptable.”
Mahalick, 30, who took to farming after obtaining a BTech degree, said: “Out of frustration, I brought 38 quintals of paddy from my land and dumped it inside the collectorate premises. Now they should decide whether they will keep it or throw it in the dustbin.”
Narrating his plight, another farmer, Satyanarayan Nayak, said: “I have been a farmer for the last 30 years, but I have never come across such a situation. The BJP government came to power promising there would be no katni or chhatni and that paddy would be procured from all farmers.”
The 49-year-old added: “But the state government is pursuing a pick-and-choose policy. Paddy is being procured from only 20 per cent of registered farmers.”
National convener of Naba Nirman Krushak Sangathan, Akshya Kumar, said: “Farmers are now at the mercy of the government. The minister is misleading people on paddy procurement. Farmers are being looted in the name of FAQ norms and threatened that procurement will stop.”
He alleged that paddy was lying in heaps at mandis across the state and that the government was presenting a misleading picture of the procurement process.
The BJD’s farmers’ wing on Friday organised a demonstration on the issue in Nuapada district. “Farmers are passing through difficult times. The mandi system has totally collapsed in the state,” party leaders said.
Earlier, on February 9, leader of Opposition Naveen Patnaik had asked chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi to honour electoral promises on paddy procurement and “rise above rhetoric and fulfil commitments made to farmers”.
Naveen had said: “Despite repeated assurances of hassle-free procurement, farmers are being subjected to arbitrary deductions of 5kg to 7kg per quintal under the guise of moisture content or poor quality. In many districts, this exploitation is happening in broad daylight, often with the alleged collusion of millers and local officials, forcing farmers into ‘mutual agreements’ that rob them of their hard-earned income.”