The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Ryots seek flexible procurement policy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 18, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Ryots seek flexible procurement policy

By S. Vydhianathan

CHENNAI, DEC. 17. Despite good samba prospects, delta farmers are not confident of getting a remunerative price for their produce.

With heavy arrivals of paddy and rice from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, Tamil Nadu traders may not offer a good price for local paddy. According to trade sources, on an average 400 lorryloads come to the market from the neighbouring states.

If the trend continues, the farmers fear there would not be market for their produce. They wanted the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation (TNCSC) to procure paddy and not reject the stock on one pretext or other. In the last kuruvai season, they did not get a fair price.

A majority of the Corporation's direct purchase centres rejected their stocks stating that the moisture content was more than the prescribed limit of 20 per cent.

Private merchants exploited the situation, offering less than Rs. 300 for a bag of 59 kg, which was much lower than the Government of India's minimum support price (MSP) of Rs. 590 for a bag of 75 kg for A grade and Rs. 570 for the common variety.

The farmers said the arrival at the DPCs would be heavy in samba season as about three lakh hectares was under cultivation against about 60,000 hectares in kuruvai.

`Distress sale likely'

The Cauvery Delta Farmers Association general secretary, S.Ranganathan, told The Hindu that the delta farmers after facing drought for three successive years raised kuruvai paddy with great difficulty this year. But they did not get a good price. If the corporation adopted the same attitude, he feared, there would be distress sale again.

The Corporation could have purchased paddy with more moisture content by effecting grade cut. As it had a number of rice mills it could have dried paddy in the mills. He appealed to the Government to adopt a flexible policy for procuring paddy. However, sources in the TNCSC said that as a decentralised agency of the Food Corporation, it could not relax norms without the prior approval of the FCI. In the last season, though the maximum limit for moisture content was 18 per cent, it accepted paddy with moisture content up to 20 per cent thanks to the State Government's intervention. But they felt that such a situation would not arise, as samba paddy would have less moisture content. Moreover, the FCI wanted to build enough stock here to meet the demands of southern states. Hence, there would not be any difficulty in purchasing heavily from the delta farmers in the samba season, they said.

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