Hyderabad, April 24: At nature’s mercy:A heap of paddy dumped along the road margin near Nachugunta in West Godavari district. The growers resort to using open spaces for storage of food grains due to space crunch in godowns, leading to heavy damage during rain.
ELURU: The joint meeting convened by Collector G. Vani Mohan with the rice millers and the paddy growers here on Saturday brought to the fore the alleged irregularities in issue of certificates by the authorities of the Civil Supplies department with regard to enforcement of the minimum support price (MSP) for paddy. The department issues certificates in confirmation of the MSP implementation by the millers. And the millers in turn are bound to supply the rice to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) only on production of the MSP certificates.
Cherukuvada Sriranganadha Raju, president of the West Godavari District Rice Millers Association, admitted that the millers were procuring paddy from the growers by paying Rs 620 as against the MSP of Rs 772 for A-grade variety (75kg bag). He further said the millers were lifting the produce from fields only out of ‘compassion’ towards the farmers in spite of certain constrains such as storage problem and the restrictions on movement of rice to the outside states for trading etc.
Yerneni Nagendranath of the Andhra Pradesh Rytanga Samakhya criticised that under-pricing of paddy in violation of the MSP norms was nothing but exploitation by millers allegedly in collusion with the authorities concerned. It is also a clear evidence suggesting non-implementation of the MSP in the district, he added. Offended by the comment, Mr. Rangaraju appealed to the Collector to see that the peasant leader should withdraw his comment. “If we are projected in bad light, we will not attend the joint meetings hereafter. We are only answerable to the administration but not the farmers representatives,” Mr. Raju said.
The joint meeting was intended to find a way out for the marketing problems faced by ryots in rabi. The district is expected to record a bumper crop of around 15 lakh tonnes, raising the serious marketing and storage problems. However, the solution to the procurement problem remained elusive as the millers stuck to their guns, insisting on solution to certain policy issues such as hike in the milling charges and provision of additional storage facility by way of constructing new godowns to be settled at the government level.
The Collector asked the Revenue and the Civil Supplies departments to work in close coordination in handling the present glut in the paddy market.
–Agencies