Chandigarh, November 1
If onion can influence the outcome of the Delhi Assembly elections, can coarse grain bajra lag behind. At least politicians think so. They feel that bajra will play a crucial role in the assembly elections of Rajasthan, where it is a staple diet.
Thanks to the good monsoon, the states like Rajasthan and Haryana have had a bumper bajra crop this year as a result of which the prices of bajra have crashed in the open market.
According to informed sources, under pressure from Rajasthan BJP leaders the Union Food Ministry this year directed the FCI to procure bajra at the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 505 per quintal. For Haryana Chief Minister and Indian National Lok Dal supremo Om Prakash Chautala, it was a god-sent opportunity. Mr Chautala, who wishes to register the presence of his party in Rajasthan in a big way, immediately asked the state agencies to procure bajra at the MSP, unmindful of its origin.
The FCI did not involve itself in the procurement of bajra in Haryana unlike Rajasthan, where it is actively involved in procurement. Instead, it gave permission to the Haryana government procurement agencies to purchase bajra on its behalf. This further made things easy for the ruling party. The state agencies often turned a blind eye towards the quality of the crop being brought to the mandis.
Mr Chautala also openly declared inside and outside Rajasthan that the Haryana agencies would buy bajra brought to them even by Rajasthan farmers, obviously to please them on the eve of the assembly elections. Often, it becomes difficult for officials of the state agencies to distinguish between farmers and traders, who have also jumped on the bandwagon to make a quick buck. Since bajra is available much below the MSP in Rajasthan, many a trader brought bajra from the desert state to sell it to the Haryana procurement agencies at the MSP.
In Haryana, the procurement agencies have so far purchased about 2 lakh tonnes. In contrast the government agencies in Rajasthan so far have been able to purchase only about 5,000 tonnes. The sources say because of the active involvement of the FCI in the
procurement operations, the quality control is strict.
The sources say initially the FCI had allowed 2.5 per cent discoloured and damaged grains to be purchased at Rs 505 per quintal. However, the corporation had to relax the specifications when Rajasthan BJP leaders urged the Centre to intervene because only about 290 tonnes of bajra had been purchased in Rajasthan by then. The corporation relaxed the specifications to 7.5 per cent. It also decided that if the crop contained more than 2.5 per cent discoloured and damaged grains, the farmers would be paid Rs 485 per quintal instead of Rs 505.
The sources say when Union Food Minister Sharad Yadav visited Rajasthan mandis, he was urged by the Rajasthan BJP chief, Ms Vasundhra Raje Scindia, to further relax the specifications. Mr Yadav immediately ordered the specifications to be relaxed to allow 15 per cent discoloured grains. But the price to be paid to the farmers, he said, would not be less than Rs 485 per quintal. Despite the relaxed specifications, the quantity of bajra procured in Rajasthan can be described as “peanuts” as compared to that procured in Haryana.
Interestingly while it will be the Centre, which will subsidise the purchase of bajra, the state leaders are projecting themselves as the saviours of farmers. The shelf life of bajra is much less than that of wheat and rice. The FCI has decided to auction bajra, which cannot be stored for long, purchased by the state agencies in the open market, where its price ranges from Rs 400 per quintal to Rs 450 per quintal against the MSP of Rs 505 per quintal. The FCI will also have to pay another 10.5 per cent of the MSP as commission, market fee, rural development cess and other levies to the Haryana Government.
In addition, the FCI will pay the difference of the MSP and the auction money to the state agencies.
Will the purchase of bajra bring votes to the INLD in Rajasthan? A similar experiment in western UP had not brought any dividends to the INLD in the assembly elections. Haryana had purchased paddy brought by farmers of western U.P. on a large scale in 2001 before the assembly elections. However, farmers of that state still
preferred leaders of their own state to those of Haryana.
