With Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) leaving the market operations to private ginning mills, in Adilabad the latter formed into a ring and cornered farmers to sell their harvest at less price when compared to open markets elsewhere in the State and bordering districts in Maharashtra.
While prevailing market price per quintal is anywhere between ₹8,100 to ₹8,500 in districts including Nizamabad, Medak, Kamareddy, Mahabubnagar, Nagarkurnool, the ginning mills in Adilabad town purchased the cotton lint at ₹7,960 per quintal on Saturday. The same mills purchased the cotton for ₹ 8,130 on Friday and suddenly dropped ₹170 per quintal.
Caught in this fork, the farmers lamented that every year situation repeats like this and urged the government to get involved to do justice to their produce and further put an end to atrocities by the private ginners in the town. Following a sudden dip in the price, a large number of farmers staged a protest and rasta roko for nearly seven hours at Kisan Chowk.
“We are being exploited by the ginning mill owners in the town. Businessmen from one particular community formed a syndicate and suddenly dropped the price,” lamented Suresh, a farmer from Jainad mandal.
Further, they said that after finalising the deal at the market yard and unloading the cotton at the mills, the ginners are ‘cheating’ the farmers by giving less amount citing various reasons, including high moisture content.
“If the moisture content is high, they should not purchase the cotton from the yard. But cleverly after unloading the cotton, they are dropping the price, which is clearly an exploitation and district administration must take immediate and stringent action against them,” said Vinod, a tenant farmer. They also demanded an Income Tax probe on the ginners.
They further said they could not take their produce to other markets as fuel prices had gone up and they had to bear additional costs, making it totally unremunerative.
