Uproar in assembly over paddy distress sale

Uproar in assembly over paddy distress sale
Bhubaneswar

The Odisha Legislative Assembly on Tuesday witnessed uproarious scenes as both the Opposition Congress and the BJP expressed concern over the paddy distress sale and dissatisfied with the Minister’s reply walked out of the House.

While the Opposition placing an adjournment motion said while the farmers’ have already faced drought, their economic condition has further broken down due to paddy distress sale going on in the State.

Alleging that the State Government has no concern for the farmers, they dubbed the State Government as ‘anti-farmer’.

Refuting the charges of the Opposition, the Food Supply and Consumer Welfare Minister said there is no possibility of distress sale of paddy in the State.

“There is no distress sale of paddy in the State as the Government has decided to open as many as 1,425 paddy procurement centres,” the Minister said replying to the debate on the adjournment motion.

The Minister informed the House that no distress sale of paddy has taken place any where in the State as the State Government has been procuring the same from farmers through various agencies. As of now a total of 20,871 metric tonnes of paddy has been procured through State Civil Supply Corporation, NAFED, PACS, Pani Panchayats and Self Help Groups. Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) have alone procured 8,110 metric tonne of paddy, Nayak said.

Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh alleged that as the Government has not set up mandis for keeping of paddy, the farmers were being forced to sale their paddy at far less price than minimum support price. He accused the State Government of ignoring the interest of farmers at the cost of millers.

Though the minimum support price of good variety of paddy was `1030 per quintal, the farmers get only `600 or `700 due to lack of sufficient paddy procurement centres, he alleged.

Congress member Sadhu Nepak also alleged that though a large number of farmers are queuing up to different mandis to sell their paddy, they find no one there to receive them. “The Government has remained careless though the farmers have come down to the streets and protested against the Government’s apathy. It is most unfortunate,” he said.

BJP Chief Whip Jaynarayan Mishra also accused the State Government of not paying any heed to the farmers’ problems. He said while a number of farmers died due to crop loss and loan burden, the scenario has worsened as the distress sale was going on in the State.

Terming the Opposition allegations as partial truth ruling MLA Ananta Das requested the Minister to take steps so that paddy distress sale does not take place. However, he blamed the Food Corporation of India (FCI) for not meeting its target of procuring paddy from the farmers.

The State Government has set a target of procuring 32 lakh metric tonne of rice from the kharif season on the current year.