These procurement centres are only for namesake!

Till now 58.5 quintals of paddy procured, maize records nil

The centres started 10 days ago to provide minimum support price (MSP) for agriculture produce look abandoned, with only officials of State Food and Civil Supplies Corporation waiting for farmers. The centres have been set up on the premises of Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees (APMC) at Chamarajanagar, Hanur and Kollegal and TAPCMS at Gundlupet and Yalandur.

Farmers can sell paddy at Kollegal  and Yalandur, while maize is procured at other centres. The government has announced an incentive of Rs 250 for paddy and fixed a MSP of Rs 1,330 and Rs 1,360 for ordinary and ‘A’ grade paddy respectively. Maize gets a MSP of Rs 980. Only Kollegal centre has recorded procurement of 58.50 quintal of paddy. Not even a single kilogram of maize has been procured.

Only farmers who have less than two acres of land and certified by the revenue department are eligible to sell their produce here. The farmers also have to produce their RTCs and crop certification from village accountants. They have to bring their produce in only 50 kg bags. This has become a big problem for farmers.

Apart from this the farmers have to transport their produce at their own expense. Quality inspectors from the agriculture department have to certify the produce for procurement. If it is rejected, the farmers have to take back their produce incurring double transportation charges. Even if the produce is accepted, nobody knows when the payment would be made.

So farmers prefer private traders, who seems to be better than the procurement centre.
The moisture level for maize is fixed at 14.0 and for paddy at 17.0. Farmers feel if they dry their produce to reach this level, the weight also goes down, which means low returns.

“The criteria fixed by the government for procurement of agriculture produce itself is unscientific. Even the incentive for paddy is too low. Government should also fix a deadline for payment of money after procurement. Otherwise farmers will not come to the centres,” says Parashivappa, a farmer.