UP’s paddy procurement plan fails, farmers forced to sell it at lower rates

SHAHJAHANPUR: The state government’s elaborate plans to meet its paddy procurement targets this year following large-scale disaffection among peasants last year have fallen flat, thanks to apathy of government officials. As a result, farmers were again forced to sell their crop to middlemen at much lower prices.
In October, the Uttar Pradesh cabinet had approved the paddy procurement policy for the marketing year 2016-17 and set a target of purchasing 50 lakh metric tonne of paddy from farmers this year.The support price for common variety of paddy was announced at Rs 1,470 per quintal.
Besides, the cabinet had approved the opening of 2,600 purchase centres run by 10 agencies, out of which 550 centres were to be run by UP’s Food Department and have a target of purchasing 12 lakh metric tonne. The UP Food and Essential Services Corporation was to purchase 3 lakh metric tonne of paddy from 100 centres, while the UP Employees Corporation was to set up 150 purchase centres from which it is mandated to buy 4 lakh metric tonne of paddy from farmers.
Farmers in the district, however, rued that 46 of the total 119 centres set up by the district administration to achieve the target of 3.3 lakh tonnes of wheat procurement from Shahjahanpur did not buy even a single kilo of paddy.
Shahjahanpur, along with Pilibhit and Lakhimpur Kheri, are the major paddy producing districts in the state. Since the districts fall in the terai belt and have stable waterbodies all the year round, more than 60% farmers here grow paddy with over 3 lakh hectare under cultivation in Shahjanahpur alone.
Balhaar Singh, a farmer from Sujanpur village, told TOI, “All the farmers in our village have sold paddy to private dealers at much lower prices because the centres never started purchasing our crop. This happens every year and we have to sell paddy at a very low price of up to Rs 1000 per quintal.”