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Kisan panel plans protests against FCI

By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi Oct. 3. The Kisan Coordination Committee (KCC) has decided to launch dharnas before offices of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) in parts of the country to press their demand for dismantling the Corporation in favour of a free-market system.

Announcing this here today, the president of the Bharati Kisan Union, Bhupinder Mann, and the Shetkari Sangathana leader, Sharad Joshi, said an emergency meeting of the KCC was called to consider the situation created by the imbroglio on the minimum support price announced for kharif paddy this season.

Advocating dismantling of all controls from the market and the introduction of free and fair competition in the farm sector, Mr. Joshi said the recent drought relief of Rs. 20 a quintal on the MSP did not meet the requirement of the farmers.

He demanded that the farm support mechanisms be privatised and the FCI replaced by an open and competitive system that assured farmers of their dues. He said private companies should be allowed to provide warehousing facilities and the receipts issued encashed as a negotiable instrument.

He said resolutions to this effect had been passed in the meeting of the KCC headed by Mr. Mann.

Asked whether farmers would agree to be paid their dues by private companies when even against assured MSP paid by the FCI, there are reports every year of distress sale by farmers, he said, "patients don't know the diagnosis''.

Mr. Joshi said it would be "the look-out of those who want to run the Public Distribution System'' to ensure that foodgrains were available.He dispelled fears regarding private companies forming a cartel and paying a pittance to the farmers for their produce, saying that some of what the Government pays is also devoured by middlemen. In the absence of Government restrictions there would be no need of a support price at all, he added.

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