As market slide continued in the wake of the Union Health Ministry enforcing larger pictorial warning from April 1, tobacco growers in Prakasam district went on the warpath seeking the Union Commerce Ministry’s intervention to create buoyancy in the market.
With the major cigarette manufacturers stopping production following the Health Ministry’s notification making it mandatory display pictorial warnings on 85 per cent space of cigarette packets, farmers from different auction platforms staged a sit-in in front of the Collectorate urging Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to direct the trade wing of the Tobacco Board to enter the market.
The growers from different auction platforms, including Vellampalli, Ongole, Kondepi and Tangutur, raised slogans in support of their demands, including announcement of a rehabilitation scheme for ryots volunteering to quit tobacco cultivation as part of the Centre’s strategy to phase it out over a period.
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Leading the protest, Virginia Tobacco Growers Welfare Association president Ch. Seshaiah alleged that the market moved southwards with traders forming a syndicate to deny a fair price to the growers by making an issue out of the larger pictorial warning at the middle of the marketing season.
It was unfortunate that the manufacturers who had given indents for 70.53 million kg had hardly lifted 12.55 million kg so far, said another former Tobacco Board member M. Bangarababu.
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Former Tobacco Board member Ch. Ranga Rao said on the other hand, the exporters, who offered higher prices initially, kept away from the market on the pretext of lack of confirmed orders from overseas buyers.
Fall in price
While the price of bright grade tobacco fell by Rs. 10 per kg, the medium grade went down by Rs. 15 per kg, explained YSR Congress farmers’ wing district president M. Subba Reddy.
As part of the tobacco reduction strategies, the Centre should compensate the ryots ready to dismantle the tobacco barns and provide some incentives for switching to other crops, Rythu Collie Sangham district secretary P. Koteswara Rao said.