NEW DELHI: Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) strongly protests against the Union Government for the chaos created in the process of procurement of paddy in Punjab and Haryana. The Food Corporation of India-FCI did not lift last year’s paddy stock from the warehouses and Mills on time is the root cause of the current acute procurement crisis.
Punjab produces 180 LMT of paddy annually and after milling around 125 LMT rice will be produced and stored. Out of the last year’s stock, around 130 LMT rice stored in the warehouses and rice mills in Punjab is yet to be lifted by the FCI. Warehouses are choked with stock hence, the Rice Millers are unable to procure this year's yield due to lack of storage facility.
Farmers are witnessing for the first time in history such poor lifting of their yield on time. In Punjab 70% of the harvesting is over but no lifting is taking place. Trolleys full of paddy are lying parked in the houses across Punjab and Haryana. Farmers will not get payment in their bank account till the consigment reaches the godowns.
There were efforts to create procurement crisis and destroy the bond between the farmers, Arhtiyas (Middlemen), Mill Owners and workers in the APMC Markets to destroy the procurement system. SKM has supported the genuine demands of all sections involved in the procurement industry and convened meetings of their representatives and called for united agitations demanding immediate solution to the crisis.
The pro-corporate policies of the Union Government and the inefficient handling of the crisis by the State Governments of Punjab and Haryana created the current mess. SKM alleged conspiracy to destroy the time tested, robust Agricultural Produce Market Committee System-APMC that is linked with the villages with the ill-intention of helping the corporate forces to take advantage and exploit farmers. The pro-corporate policies have targeted APMC system and force farmers to sell their paddy at distress rate to corporate players like Adani who has constructed silos at Moga, Kathunangal at Amritsar and Raikot in Ludhiana.
Only below 10% of the paddy produced is procured across the country that too with low price of MSP@A2+FL+50%. Farmers are unable to meet the cost of production from the income out of the sale of their yield. Instead of ensuring full procurement and remunerative price by implementing MSP@C2+50%, the the Union Government strive to destroy the limitedly existing successful system of procurement under APMC System in Punjab and Haryana.
SKM strongly urges the Union Government to be sensitive enough to handle the procurement crisis and ensure paddy procured and payment made on time to farmers.