Farmers are restless. Be it Vidarbha in Maharashtra, Punjab, MP or UP, a fire is smoldering which has the potential to erupt with serious consequences. Who is responsible for the farmer’s plight?
A general apathy towards farmer’s grievances and rampant corruption at all places are the prime reasons.
Take the instance of Vidarbha in Maharashtra. The State Government started cotton procurement in December, delaying it by two months after the crop was harvested. In several places, procurement centres were yet to open. With their harvest remaining unsold, farmers were restless. Those who came to few centres that were open, like Wani, had to wait for days in chilling cold. Some of them had hired trucks to bring the produce there and as the trucks remained stranded for days, the rent mounted. Graders were refusing to buy all the cotton, saying it was moist. With time and when they realized something was wrong, farmers grew restless. They ransacked the furniture and put the building on fire. Finally police had to open fire to disperse the farmers.
What happened at Wani is not a stray incident. The same is happening all over India leading to restlessness among the farming community. A senior officer connected with the agriculture department in UP spilt the beans to us though only on condition of anonymity. This is the time when paddy and sugarcane is being purchased by State departments. Cheques worth crores of rupees are issued daily from the offices of Regional Food Controllers in various divisions. What happens on ground is that the graders label a particular farmer’s produce as moist. The farmer is left with no choice but to take back all the produce. Reluctant to fall in the clutches of private traders, the farmers are left with no choice but to negotiate underhand price with the graders. For instance, if the going rate is 620 per quintal and the farmer agrees to pay back Rs. 20 per quintal, the same produce that was about to be marked as wet is bought.
If it is not apathy on part of our system then what it is that in Vidarbha, where 1200 suicides have been reported since June 2005 alone, and nearly 75% of the families (12.75 lakh households) are in great distress, as per a State survey, the Cotton Corporation of India did not open centres for more than two months after the harvest, while at several places the private traders had already started buying cotton from October onwards.
Moreover, no adequate arrangements were made for farmers who waited all this while so that they could sell to the government. Finally, when some centres did open and the farmers went there, they had to wait for days and their cotton rejected on flimsy grounds. Is it not a clear enough indicator that with more and more of private parties entering into purchase of agri-produce, certain officials of the government actually played in the hands of these private players by denying the farmers an equal opportunity to sell to the government and private traders alike.
Unless the government takes remedial steps right now, the future appears to be bleaker for farmers of the country who comprise nearly 70% of the population, particularly after the entering of private players like Reliance, Bharati and ITC into this sector. Reliance has already started with creating petrol pumps and motels all across the country to build a sound network of bases from which to operate. Bharati has announced that it would make foray into schools in rural areas while ITC too is strengthening its network deeper into the country. With such giants dealing with weaklings – the farmers – the farmer’s voice is like to get throttled further unless an adequate checking system is evolved, devoid of corruption. Or else, just as several consumers complained that the mobiles at Rs. 500 were followed by exorbitant back-breaking bills and subsequent legal notices, right under the glare of us all, that too in metro cities, and the poor consumer in most cases was left with no choice but to pay up, the rural farmer who is still largely straight-forward and uncorrupted compared to us city folks, would find himself incapable of standing up in front of the well-oiled and perfected battery of lawyers, white-collared enforcers (you may call them goons) and shrewd business managers.
Is anybody listening?
A general apathy towards farmer’s grievances and rampant corruption at all places are the prime reasons.
Take the instance of Vidarbha in Maharashtra. The State Government started cotton procurement in December, delaying it by two months after the crop was harvested. In several places, procurement centres were yet to open. With their harvest remaining unsold, farmers were restless. Those who came to few centres that were open, like Wani, had to wait for days in chilling cold. Some of them had hired trucks to bring the produce there and as the trucks remained stranded for days, the rent mounted. Graders were refusing to buy all the cotton, saying it was moist. With time and when they realized something was wrong, farmers grew restless. They ransacked the furniture and put the building on fire. Finally police had to open fire to disperse the farmers.
What happened at Wani is not a stray incident. The same is happening all over India leading to restlessness among the farming community. A senior officer connected with the agriculture department in UP spilt the beans to us though only on condition of anonymity. This is the time when paddy and sugarcane is being purchased by State departments. Cheques worth crores of rupees are issued daily from the offices of Regional Food Controllers in various divisions. What happens on ground is that the graders label a particular farmer’s produce as moist. The farmer is left with no choice but to take back all the produce. Reluctant to fall in the clutches of private traders, the farmers are left with no choice but to negotiate underhand price with the graders. For instance, if the going rate is 620 per quintal and the farmer agrees to pay back Rs. 20 per quintal, the same produce that was about to be marked as wet is bought.
If it is not apathy on part of our system then what it is that in Vidarbha, where 1200 suicides have been reported since June 2005 alone, and nearly 75% of the families (12.75 lakh households) are in great distress, as per a State survey, the Cotton Corporation of India did not open centres for more than two months after the harvest, while at several places the private traders had already started buying cotton from October onwards.
Moreover, no adequate arrangements were made for farmers who waited all this while so that they could sell to the government. Finally, when some centres did open and the farmers went there, they had to wait for days and their cotton rejected on flimsy grounds. Is it not a clear enough indicator that with more and more of private parties entering into purchase of agri-produce, certain officials of the government actually played in the hands of these private players by denying the farmers an equal opportunity to sell to the government and private traders alike.
Unless the government takes remedial steps right now, the future appears to be bleaker for farmers of the country who comprise nearly 70% of the population, particularly after the entering of private players like Reliance, Bharati and ITC into this sector. Reliance has already started with creating petrol pumps and motels all across the country to build a sound network of bases from which to operate. Bharati has announced that it would make foray into schools in rural areas while ITC too is strengthening its network deeper into the country. With such giants dealing with weaklings – the farmers – the farmer’s voice is like to get throttled further unless an adequate checking system is evolved, devoid of corruption. Or else, just as several consumers complained that the mobiles at Rs. 500 were followed by exorbitant back-breaking bills and subsequent legal notices, right under the glare of us all, that too in metro cities, and the poor consumer in most cases was left with no choice but to pay up, the rural farmer who is still largely straight-forward and uncorrupted compared to us city folks, would find himself incapable of standing up in front of the well-oiled and perfected battery of lawyers, white-collared enforcers (you may call them goons) and shrewd business managers.
Is anybody listening?
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