State BJP MPs led by Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday met Union Food Minister Piyush Goyal in New Delhi seeking a direction from the Centre to the State Government for purchasing paddy in toto from the farmers. They described the difficulties and harassments faced by the farmers in the State who could not sell their paddy due to the failure of the Government mechanism, besides rampant corruption and dominance of the Dalals. In a memorandum handed out to Goyal, BJP MPs including Union Minister Pratap Sarangi, Kalahandi MP Basant Panda, Rajya Sabha MP Aswini Vaishnab, Rajya MP Padma Vibhushan Raghunath Mohapatra, Mayurbhanj MP Biseswar Tudu, Balangir MP Sangita Singh Deo, Sambalpur MP Nitesh Ganga Deb, Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi and Bargarh MP Suresh Pujari alleged that the ruling BJD was hiding its inefficiency and systemic failure in purchasing the paddy from the farmers and was misleading by saying that it was not receiving Central financial support for paddy procurement.
“Despite this years’ better-than-expected harvest of paddy due to a favourable monsoon, the State Government did not revise its ceiling of paddy procurement of 19 quintals for every acre of irrigated land and 13 quintals for every acre of non-irrigated land. As a result, thousands of farmers were left with unsold paddy which they had to sell at half the price of MSP fixed by the Central government, i.e. Rs 1,868 per quintal.
There have also been many cases reported in local media where farmers have been prohibited from selling due quantities of their harvest as per their landholding so as to favour a few political supporters of the ruling party,” read the memorandum.
They urged Goyal to form a high power committee on the issue and a fact finding team so as to send it for ground report. Minster Goyal assured the MPs to direct the concerned authorities for sorting out the problems.