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| Tuesday, October 10, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Paddy procurement NEW DELHI, Oct 9 — Punjab Chief Minister, Parkash Singh Badal, today called on Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee and briefed him about the problems being faced in the process of paddy purchases in Punjab. Today’s meeting was the second meeting of Mr Badal with the Prime Minister on the paddy procurement issue in less than a week. During his meeting with Mr Vajpayee, Mr Badal presented a set of important newspaper clippings throwing light on the prevailing situation in Punjab. He stressed the need for a pragmatic decision in view of the extremely volatile situation prevailing all over Punjab because of the deadlock between the procurement agencies and the farmers caused by stringent paddy and rice specifications prescribed by the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution. In a letter delivered personally to Mr Vajpayee, the Punjab Chief Minister said that the recent press statement by Mr Bhure Lal, Chairman of the Food Corporation of India, declaring 80 per cent of about 125 lakh metric tonnes of paddy of Punjab as sub-standard even before the high-level team sent by the Prime Minister to assess the situation gave its findings has “added insult to the injury suffered by the highly agitated farmers in the State and turned the situation into explosive one.” Ever since his visit to Punjab the share of the FCI in paddy procurement which had crossed the figure of about 36 per cent has come down to 32 per cent against the allotted share of 40 per cent, which is cause of serious concern. Mr Badal
informed the Prime Minister that farmers all over the State were sitting on dharnas and road and rail blockades, gheraos and other forms of agitation which might turn violent if the farmers of Punjab were not extended a sympathetic helping hand. He expressed his view that the much-trumpeted argument of making an effort for qualitative changes in paddy and rice is a long term process involving research and development activity with adequate infrastructural and inputs backup and that “the quality changes cannot be brought out overnight with a casual stroke of a bureaucratic pen.” The Punjab Chief Minister argued that he himself being a farmer knows about farming, and after consulting technical experts like Vice-Chancellor of the Punjab Agricultural University, he is of the considered view that the hard working farmers of Punjab who brought food self-sufficiency to the nation during the years of scarcity are being driven to misery and distress during the recent years of plenty, which, if we leave our farmers in the lurch, may be short-lived. The high-level central team deputed by the Prime Minister on the insistence of Mr Badal has in the meantime completed its tour of Punjab and collected some samples of paddy, which are in the process of being analysed at New Delhi. Mr Badal has requested the Prime Minister to take an early decision in favour of the Punjab farmers either by relaxing the specifications of paddy or sufficiently reducing the resultant rice outturn ratio. “Forcing the farmers to take recourse to distress sale of paddy below the minimum support price would be the gravest injustice to them,” he said. Later in the day, Mr Badal also met Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, to discuss the financial implications of the proposed relaxations in favour of the Punjab farmers. Mr Badal could not meet Mr Shanta Kumar, Union Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Minister, as he is on a tour to Himachal Pradesh. Meanwhile, Mr Badal has deputed the Punjab Food and Supplies Minister Mr Madan Mohan Mittal, to personally meet Mr Shanta Kumar in Himachal Pradesh to request him to break the present impasse at the earliest. Against 59.3 metric tonnes of paddy purchased during the corresponding period last year, a total of 33.25 lakh metric tonnes of paddy has been purchased in the mandis of Punjab till yesterday, out of which rice millers have made private purchases to the extent of 12 lakh metric
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Central package
likely for paddy growers LUDHIANA, Oct 9 — The Centre may come out with a relief package for the Punjab farmers who have been agitating for the past several days over the slow pace of paddy procurement by the FCI and other official procurement agencies in the state. The relief package will be based on the recommendations of the Central team which last week visited more than half a dozen districts of Punjab, including Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Amritsar,
Ferozepore, Faridkot, Bathinda and Faridkot and took along with it samples of paddy being brought to the mandis by the farmers. According to official sources familiar with the thinking of the Central team, the relief could be either by way of reducing the “outturn” of rice from per kg of paddy or by offering slightly lower prices for different grades of paddy available in the market. However, there would be no dilution of specifications laid down by the Government of India for top class paddy. The tardy pace of paddy procurement and the observation by the FCI Chairman, Mr Bhure Lal, that up to 80 per cent of the paddy being brought to the Punjab mandis do not meet the specifications laid down by the Government of India has sparked off a statewide agitation by the farmers. The rather slow pace of paddy procurement by official agencies is reflected in the official figures available here today. So far, a total of 33.25 lakh tonne of paddy has been purchased in Punjab this year. |
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Strict norms make paddy prices dip ROPAR, Oct 9 — Because of the strict norms adopted by the FCI and state agencies this year farmers in Ropar are being forced to opt for distress sales. A survey of the Ropar, Bela and Chamkaur Sahib mandis revealed that the procurement agencies have purchased just about 20 per cent of the total paddy which was arrived till today, at these
mandis.
While some farmers have been waiting for buyers at the mandis for the past 10 to 15 days, more paddy kept arriving leading to a glut. There is now no space for fresh arrivals of paddy. Under the circumstances the farmers are selling super fine varieties of paddy at rates ranging from Rs 400 to Rs 450 per quintal against the government reserve price of Rs 550 per quintal and the common variety at the rates ranging from the Rs 350 to Rs 400 per quintal against the government price of Rs 510 per quintal, to private buyers. The block president of the Kisan Union (Lakhowal), Mr Jagdish Singh said that farmers were trying their level best to bring dry paddy to the mandis but still their produce was not being purchased on flimsy grounds. The farmers were asked by state agriculture experts to sow the IR 113 variety of paddy this season. However, now the same variety was not being purchased by the agencies. In many cases even approved paddy lots were not being picked up, he alleged. Mr Darshan Singh Kang, district president of the Arahtia Association, said state agencies were not making timely payments for the paddy they bought. He alleged that though the FCI was making payments within 72 hours the state agencies had made no payments since September 22. Meanwhile, the Deputy Commissioner, Ropar, Mr G.S. Grewal, who visited the Bela, Chamkaur Sahib, Morinda, Kurali and Kharar mandis to supervise the procurement process, said that they would not allow the exploitation of the farmers at the hands of the traders. He urged traders to form joint committees with farmers and the procurement agencies and decide the rates for different degrees of damaged paddy.  |
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