The farmers’ associations of Nuapada district have complained that the millers of the district in connivance with the procurement agencies and the corrupt officials of Civil Supply department have embezzled lakhs of rupees in the procurement of paddy and custom milling.
“The millers have not delivered the requisite quantity of Custom Milled Rice (CMR) to the Government against the paddy they had received from different procuring agencies during the Kharif season of 2012-13 for custom milling,” they alleged before the District Magistrate of Nuapada.
As many as 37 rice millers of Nuapada district had participated in custom milling operations during 2012-13. They had received a total quantity of 85,565.73 metric ton of paddy from different procurement agencies like NAFED, MARKFED, TDCC, Cooperative Societies and Rice Purchase Centres of Odisha State Civil Supply Corporation (OSCSC) for custom milling. As per their agreement with the Civil Supply Corporation, the millers should have delivered a total quantity of 58,083.24 MT of rice to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and the Rice Receiving Centre (RRC) after custom milling. But, the millers have not been able to deliver their respective quotas in time. It is learnt that the millers have knowingly violated their agreement with the OSCSC in fulfilling their targets. Interestingly, all of them have avoided providing rice to the FCI and instead more quantity has been delivered to the RRC.
“It is because the FCI demands best quality of rice, where as the RRC run by the OSCSC has no such discrimination or restrictions,” alleged the farmer leaders. “Worst quality of rice is delivered by the millers to the RRC, which is being lifted by the Civil Supply department for distribution through the Public Distribution System,” they added.
“There is a nexus between the millers, procuring agencies and the corrupt officials of Civil Supply department to misappropriate public money by openly defying the operational guidelines for procurement and delivery of paddy and Custom Milled Rice (CMR),” said District Farmers’ Association general secretary Rajesh Nigam.
The available data on delivery of CMR to the FCI and the RRC by the millers in the district proves that the allegations of the farmers are not out of context. When the delivery of rice by all registered millers to the RRC is 17, 618.54 MT, the FCI has received only 8,455.47 MT in total, which is 32.43 per cent of the total rice delivered. Mahabir Rice Mill is the biggest defaulter in this respect, which has not delivered anything to the FCI. Santi Rice Mills has delivered only 12 per cent. Half of the milling agents have not achieved the district average of 32.43 per cent in delivery of CMR to the FCI.
“The millers have paid more than Rs 10 lakh as commission to the corrupt officials of civil supply department for delivering rice to the RRC,” said Nigam.
However, the Civil Supply Officer of Nuapada district denied the allegations, though he agreed that there has been immense delay by the millers in supply the rice.
According to information from the civil supply office, the millers lag far behind their individual targets. They have delivered only 44.89 per cent of the total quantity of their CMR dues by the end of April 2013.
“The millers have sold the paddy in the neighbouring Chhatishgarh because the minimum support price (MSP) in Chhatishgarh was much higher than Odisha during Kharif Marketing Season (KMS). Conduct a raid in any of these mills and you will find the physical stock of paddy as well as CMR will be less than the stock position mentioned in the registers,” said Sanjay Tiwari, convener of Krushak Sakti Sangathan.
“The Chhatishgarh Government is not procuring paddy of the Rabi season, which has affected the price of paddy there and the farmers are selling their Rabi paddy in open market at distress price. The Nuapada millers will now procure that to fill the gap,” he added.
Another reason for the shortage in the actual stock of paddy and CMR is the manipulation of data in procurement and custom milling by the concerned millers. Information obtained through RTI on procurement of paddy during the Rabi season of 2009 had revealed that the millers in connivance with the procurement agencies and the supply department had inflated the figure of procurement. Although the paddy production was only 7,000 quintals during 2009, the procurement was more than 77,000 quintals. Verification of the list of farmers revealed that about 35 per cent of the farmers in the list were either small, marginal farmers or landless, who had no capacity to sell paddy during Rabi but had registered selling of a hundred of quintals of paddy each. When one of the rice mills at Khariar was raided, it was found that, the physical stock position of paddy and CMR was less than 75 per cent of the figures shown in the papers.
“The millers do it regularly. The figures on procurement and custom milling are always inflated and the PDS rice and the paddy procured from Chhatishgarh during Rabi season gradually fill the gap and the delay is caused,” revealed Tiwari.
“This is recycling which is organised very cleverly by the millers and the officials for making money,” he added.