Cotton seeds scarcity puts dist admn in fix

In Mysore on Saturday, hundreds of farmers descended on Rama Vilas Road and Jaganmohan Palace Road where the seed shops are located following assurance from officials that seeds would be made available in the weekend.

To their shock, if a majority of the seed centres were shut, a few had hung no stock board. Hundreds of farmers marched up to the Deputy Commissioner’s office to stage a protest.

In a bid to pacify the agitating farmers, Additional Deputy Commissioner Zaheera Naseem told farmers that about 30,000 packets of seeds have arrived in the district. It would be distributed on priority basis in H D Kote and Nanjangud taluk - highest cotton growing areas in the region. More packets are expected to arrive soon, she said. However, the protesters raised slogans against the district administration and condemned apathy of the officials blaming them for the chaos.

Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Harsh Gupta is camping in H D Kote taluk to manage the crisis.  Though, a few thousands of RCH seeds are ready for distribution, many ryots refused to buy them and insisted on supplying DCH seeds.

Owing to thousands of farmers storming the seed centres, the officials could not resume distribution till evening, despite farmers wanting the RCH seeds in the last moment.

At H D Kote

Hundreds of farmers at H D Kote in the district, staged a demonstration protesting against non-availability of DCH seeds. Chaos prevailed in the taluk- the highest cotton growing area in the district, when farmers took to streets both in the town and Homaragalli.

The ryots condemned the government for the negligence. Security was beefed up in the town where farmers are camping in front of the seed centres. “The time is ideal to start sowing. The sowing done after one week will not give desired results,” a farmer told this paper.