Durgapur, May 3: Nearly 200 farmers in a Burdwan village who sold their paddy to the local agricultural cooperative society in February today demonstrated in front of their bank after the post-dated cheques issued by the society for April bounced.
They complained that only 79 of the 340 farmers who had sold their paddy to the Koicha Agricultural Cooperative Society in Ausgram block I could encash their cheques drawn on Burdwan Central Cooperative Bank’s Guskara branch. The cheques of the rest of the farmers bounced. The farmers said the post-dated cheques were supposed to be encashed in the last week of April.
The farmers demonstrated in front of the Central Bank of India branch at Debshala village in Ausgram where they have their accounts.
“I had sold 465 bags (each containing 60kg) of paddy to the cooperative society at the minimum support price of Rs 1,080 per quintal. The society issued me a cheque of Rs 3,02,436 dated April 20. But the cheque bounced. My daughter’s marriage will take place in the middle of this month and I will need money for that,” said Anil Saha, a farmer from Debshala.
In February, 10 camps were set up in the three blocks, where cooperative societies purchased paddy from the farmers. Although the farmers had demanded that they be paid in cash, the societies had issued post-dated cheques.
“If the cooperative society had paid us in cash, such incidents would not have happened,” said Jagannath Mandal, 45, a farmer.
The manager of Koicha Agricultural Cooperative Society, Mohammad Safiur Rehman, said the society’s account ran out of balance because the process of supplying rice to Food Corporation of India warehouses in the district could not be completed on time.
“Our cooperative society had purchased around 18,000 quintals of paddy worth Rs 2.2 crore. Local rice mills failed to convert the paddy into rice on time, delaying our supply to the FCI. The FCI payments got delayed as a result,” he said.
Rehman said the society had disbursed Rs 47 lakh and made arrangements to pay a further Rs 80 lakh to farmers. “We are hopeful that the entire payment of Rs 2.2 crore will be made by next month.”
