Bhubaneswar, Feb. 12: Congress members today staged a demonstration outside the Assembly and the party MLAs forced an adjournment motion on distress sale of paddy inside the House.

Farmers of undivided Koraput district led by Congress leaders, including Pradesh Congress Committee president Prasad Harichandan and former PCC chiefs Niranjan Patnaik and Jayadev Jena, sat on Mahatma Gandhi Marg. They dumped nearly 30 quintals of paddy on the street, demanding that the government should procure paddy from the farmers without any further delay. Former Nabarangpur MP Pradeep Majhi and former minister Chandrasekhar Sahu were in the forefront of the agitation.

They alleged that the farmers were being forced to sell their produce at throwaway price to the agents of millers from Andhra Pradesh, as the government agencies were not purchasing them. The personnelat the government-run purchase centres were making a drastic cut from the weight of the paddy.

Farmers of undivided Koraput district had suffered severe loss following Hudhud in October last. The Congress members said the party would launch a statewide agitation, if the problem were not sorted out immediately.

On the other hand, both the Congress andthe BJP raised the issue through an adjournment motion inside the Assembly.

Congress chief whip Tara Prasad Bahinipati said: "As the government is not procuring paddy from the farmers, they were forced to go for distress sale. Their backbone has totally been crushed." Even though around 4,200 farmers have committed suicide in the past five years, the government is yet to rise to the occasion, he said.

BJP legislature party leader Basanta Kumar Panda said the farmers were now falling victim to the conspiracy of the mill owners and the government procurement agencies.

The Opposition members also alleged that though the state government has announced the minimum support price for purchase of paddy,the money is not being paid to the farmers.

<-4.000>However, food supplies and consumer welfare minister Sanjay Das Burma said the paddy procurement had begun late this year due to late arrival of monsoon.

He said the operation had been more streamlined as the primary agricultural co-operative societies and regulated market committees were involved in it.