JEYPORE: A paddy-laden rake is allegedly diverted to an unidentified destination in Maharashtra from Jeypore station and the district administration has no record of it. The train carrying around 15,000 quintal paddy allegedly purchased by the millers and middlemen on the plea of distress condition, was transported to the western India State.Sources revealed that the State Government had allowed the Koraput district administration to procure rabi paddy through LAMPS under Koraput Central Cooperative Bank. Accordingly, the procurement was tagged to 59 millers of Koraput district under the direct supervision of district civil supplies department, LAMPS Jeypore and Regulated Market Committee (RMC) officials. But things went wrong when the administration could not meet paddy procurement target from May to July from the farmers and the target was downsized to 3.40 lakh quintal like the previous year. Significantly, around 40,000 acres of land was cultivated for the rabi crops and the production estimated at about eight lakh quintal. Of this the total quantity that was supposed to reach the market for procurement was nearly six lakh tonnes, which is minus the stock retained by the farmers for their use. So with the Government fixing only 3.40 lakh quintal for procurement, the middlemen and millers found an easy means to exploit the farmers. This set the ball rolling for middlemen. By terming it as damaged, the middlemen bought the paddy at Rs. 900 a quintal, Rs. 100 less then the government MSP. The hapless farmers had no alternative. What favoured the millers and middlemen further is that the district administration stopped paddy procurement officially from July 15. This is when the exploitation further worsened as the middlemen and millers directly procured paddy between Rs. 750 and Rs. 800 a quintal.However, the entire process of distress sale came to light only after the train episode came to the fore. Sources informed that the middlemen and millers had managed to export it in the name of farmers from Jeypore and sold it in the market outside the State allegedly at around Rs. 1,300 a quintal. “We are little aware of the transportation of paddy by train,” said J. Ramesh, secretary of Jeypore District Seed Producers Association. The Koraput District Millers Association too feigned ignorance. “We have no knowledge about the export of paddy,” said Sidhartha Tripathy, president of the association The district civil supplies officials of Jeypore too have admitted to having no such records of paddy transactions to outside state. Meanwhile, the farmers have demanded an inquiry by the Vigilance Department. The exploitation of farmers at the hands of middlemen and millers continues even as the government claims to have checked distress sale through a procurement policy.
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