Paddy farmers in the Penna delta and upland areas struggled hard this year following deficit rain and lack of sufficient water in reservoirs, but still paddy cultivation was taken up in over 4 lakh acres with the harvesting season having started already in the past few weeks.
Rice millers have started buying the paddy from the farmers regardless of the fact that minimum support price should be provided to the produce by opening paddy procurement centres.
Farmers’ leaders allege that the millers are resorting to irregularities as they are buying the freshly harvested paddy from farmers at a lesser price and mixing the same with the old variety of paddy in the mill premises. The rice is being reportedly sold at a higher price.
“This has been going on for long in this district. There has been no action in this regard from the government or the administration. It is time the government took over the entire process of purchasing paddy, milling and supplying rice to the civil supplies corporation,” said J. Venkama Raju, president, Andhra Pradesh Rythu Sangham.
The main concern of the farmers’ associations is that the rice millers are forming a syndicate to deny farmers their rightful share of the benefits in paddy purchase.
The ordinary grade variety paddy should be purchased at ₹ 12,499 per 850 kg bag from the farmers, but they are being offered nearly ₹ 1,000 to ₹ 1,500 less by the millers.
In many instances in the past, the millers were said to have purchased paddy at lower price from the farmers and sold the same at the purchase centres at a higher cost. In this context, the farmers’ association leaders demanded that the role of the millers in procurement be eliminated by creating a revolving fund which should take over the process in the best interests of the farmers.
Mr. Raju said gross violations had been committed in the custom milling rice (CMR) aspect last year and the Revenue Recovery Act should be applied to recover the nearly ₹ 400 crore from the erring rice millers, who were trying to avoid these payments under one pretext or the other.
