The sudden downpour on Friday morning proved near fatal to many farmers, who arrived at the Enumamula agricultural market to sell their produce – paddy, cotton, maize and others.
About 30,000 bags of cotton were drenched completely in heavy rain and farmers remained helpless as they could not move their bags to a dry place due to lack of shelters in the market yard. The CCI declared that the purchases at market will end on Friday before resuming again after 10 days owing to festival holidays.
With this, farmers brought in large quantity of their produce to the market yard in early hours on Friday. Farmers from other districts such as Khammam and Nalgonda also arrived at the market yard to sell their cotton to CCI. The farmers were already agitating as the officials refuse to pay them MSP citing more moisture content. The rain dashed their hopes.
A farmer Yakaiah lamented that they would not even get lowest being offered by the officials as the cotton got completely drenched.
Meanwhile, BJP leaders Nagam Janardhan Reddy, A. Ashok Reddy and others visited the market to interact with the cotton farmers. The irate farmers heckled them first, but later shared their grief with low returns and rain damage.
Mr. Janardhan Reddy accused the State government of failing to provide enough shelter to protest the produce of farmers arriving at the market. He demanded increased price for cotton.
