Chandigarh, October 4
Peeved by the tardy procurement of paddy by state agencies, especially the Food Corporation of India, (FCI) senior Congress leadership of Punjab, including the state President, Mr Shamsher Singh Dullo, is desperately trying for intervention by the party high command as well as the centre to prevent the situation from deteriorating any further.
The suicide by a farmer of Kapurthala yesterday has rung alarm bells for the ruling party.
Though the Punjab Government claimed that the Union Government had agreed to grant relaxations by deciding to procure damaged, discoloured, sprouted and weeviled grains, the percentage so fixed is much lower than the actual damage to the crop. Now the FCI would procure damaged grains without any value cut up to a upper ceiling of 8 per cent against 3 per cent now. The damage, according to sources, is in the range of 12 to 15 per cent.
Desperation of the Congress leaders for immediate intervention could be judged from the fact that both Mr Shamsher Singh Dullo and Mr Ashwani Kumar, MP, sent separate communiques to the Prime Minister.
Mr Ashwani Kumar, in his letter, said that “unwillingness on the part of procurement agencies to lift paddy in Punjab threatens to snowball into a major confrontation between the farmer and the government unless the situation is resolved urgently”.
Mr Kumar wanted Prime Minister to find an enduring solution to this complicated problem, “which was a natural calamity and farmers in Punjab could not be held responsible for it”. He felt that a compassionate and imaginative nature could avert a major confrontation between farmers and the state.
Mr Jagmeet Singh Brar, a former MP, accompanied by a group of 24 Congress leaders and workers from various districts, met the Union Food Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, in New Delhi this evening to impress upon him the urgency for announcing relaxations in specifications.
They, too, cautioned the Food Minister that if remedial steps were not taken immediately, the situation may take an ugly turn which may prove detrimental to the interests of the Congress in the coming Assembly elections. Mr Brar also mentioned the suicide case of the farmer of Kapurthala in his memorandum, saying farmers were feeling miserable and helpless as no agency was picking their produce even after eight to 10 days.
