CM flays Central policies on farm produce

By Our Staff Reporter

WARANGAL, DEC. 7. The Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, was critical of the Central Government's policies regarding clearance of agricultural produce and said the Centre should come out with a plan fixing targets for the States so that the produce was not surplus and farmers put in a fix.

Mr. Naidu said the Centre should analyse the market fluctuations, export potential and the local conditions before assigning to the States what they should produce in how much quantity. The same information must be passed on to the States to enable them plan production accordingly and avoid problems to farmers.

The Chief Minister, on his visit to the agricultural marketyard at Enumamula here, addressed the farmers and traders after interacting with a cross section of them. He said asking the Central Government to analyse the situation and report to the States was one of the four demands he was making on the occasion to remedy the situation.

Mr. Naidu also demanded that the Food Corporation of India (FCI) procure the entire agricultural produce, if the traders were not coming forward to lift the stocks in the State. It cannot adopt double standards by relaxing norms and purchasing one crore tonnes of paddy from Punjab while procuring only 55 lakh tonnes from Andhra Pradesh last year under the pretext that the State did not have enough godowns.

The FCI can store the paddy under canvas in the open sky till such time as space was not available in the godowns like it had done in Punjab, Mr. Naidu said adding that afterall both Punjab and A.P. were major rice producing States and the FCI did not have the right to discriminate against A.P.

Mr. Naidu demanded that rice be exported to other countries at rates applicable to consumers below poverty line (BPL). When wheat can be exported at BPL rates, the same analogy must be applied to rice which is also surplus.

Making a strong case for Minimum Support Price (MSP) to farmers, Mr. Naidu felt the MSP alone would prevent farmers from going for distress sale. The farmers did not fetch remunerative price from rice, maize, groundnut and oilseeds. This was probably the first season when all these commodities faced problems of price at a time.

The rates of groundnut have come down, affecting the oil industry so much that even the 15 per cent increase in the customs duty on import of crude oil from Malaysia was of no use. The rates of crude oil exported by Malaysia have also been slashed in a big way which rendered the customs duty hike ineffective, Mr. Naidu said.

There were problems of prices for consumers earlier but now the problems were on farmers prices, he added. The Chief Minister announced that the State Government would release Rs. 100 crores to the market committees under the Rytu Bandhu scheme so that they could extend interest free loans for 75 per cent of the loaned amount for a period of three months. The loan will be recovered on simple interest after the period.

On complaints that the farmers were cheated by traders in the matter of gunny bags, he maintained that he was asking the Collectors to buy the bags and supply them to farmers at nominal rate.

The Chief Minister highlighted a dharna by TDP MPs on the farmers plight in the Lok Sabha on Thursday which forced adjournment of the House. While the TDP was taking up people's problems, some parties disturbed proceedings in the Lok Sabha by raising the Babri Masjid issue to rake up communal passions, he said in an oblique reference to the Congress.

Mr. Naidu earlier addressed a meeting of farmers and said he was committed to ensure that the farmers got Rs. 540 a quintal for grade `A' variety of paddy and Rs. 510 a quintal for common variety. There was good crop this year but no rates for farmers as the FCI was reluctant to buy the stocks saying the godowns were full.

He said he had met the Prime Minister and represented the matter recently. The FCI had purchased only ten lakh tonnes of paddy in the State so far and may lift another ten lakh tonnes in the coming days. Under the circumstances, export of rice to other States and countries in a big way was the only answer to mitigate the problems of farmers this year.

The Agriculture Minister, Mr. Vadde Sobhanadreeswara Rao, accompanied the Chief Minister. The rice millers, Congress and BJP submitted memoranda to the Chief Minister on the farmers problems.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : Tiger enclosures in zoos to have alarm system
Next     : MRPS rally on Dec.16