TIRUVARUR
A village in Valangaiman taluk in Tiruvarur district has turned into a veritable open granary with mounds of paddy or gunny bags containing paddy stacked all over the village waiting for takers.
Farmers who have taken up the paddy cultivation during this summer in and around Arithuvaramangalam had a bumper harvest.
“Each of us has harvested not less than 35 bags of paddy per acre. But our jubilation died down as we are not able to encash our produce at the right time”, said Sasikumar of Arithuvaramangalam.
The harvested paddy stacked in open at Arithuvaramangalam had started sprouting after a few showers the village had received in the past few days.
Mr. Sasikumar, who blamed the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation, for not coming forward to procure all the produce, evaded the question when asked why their produce had not attracted the attention of private traders. He criticised the State government for not coming forward to procure the paddy through the Arithuvaramangalam DPC.
Around 10,000 gunny bags of paddy, each weighing 50 to 55 kg, remain stacked in open places, lamented Raju, another farmer.
On the other hand, the TNCSC official sources said that they could not procure paddy from the farmers like in the past in view of the changes made in the procurement process.
“Nowadays, if a farmer has to sell his produce at the DPC, he has to submit the ‘adangal’ and other documents to substantiate that the produce has been harvested from the agricultural land owned or taken on lease by him. These documents are not required for selling the produce to private traders,” they pointed out.
When their attention was brought to the allegation that Arithuvaramangalam DPC staff were turning away the farmers despite an adequate stock of gunny bags, the sources said that the DPC staff could not refuse to procure the paddy if the farmers had produced the necessary records.
