ADILABAD: Farmers are knocking at the doors of the state government for help as large stocks of their paddy were drenched in the unexpected rain in recent days. They want the government to purchase the ‘damaged paddy’.
The farmers were busy drying their drenched paddy under the sun in the hope these could become normal and would be purchased by the government. Officials are offering Rs 1,960 for Grade -I and Rs 1,940 for grade -II quality paddy.
Farmers complained that the officials were cutting the weight in the name of high moisture content in the paddy that they brought to purchasing centres for sale.
In Rabi, paddy is cultivated on 64 acres in Adilabad district, 5,642 acres in Komaram Bheem Asifabad, 69,497 acres in Mancherial and 58,998 in Nirmal district.
Farmers who kept their paddy in their agriculture fields after the harvesting were planning to shift it to the paddy procurement centres. Paddy cultivation is massive in areas close to the canals of the Kadam irrigation project in Nirmal district. Some farmers cultivate paddy with the water drawn by motors from other areas.
There is no clarity on whether the district officials will purchase the drenched paddy. Farmers say they had not anticipated the rain.
Forest minister Allola Indrakaran said officials should complete paddy procurement from farmers by May 31 as pre-monsoon rains are forecast this time.
“So far officials have purchased seven metric tonnes of paddy from the 86 paddy purchasing centres in Nirmal district. However, officials did not make any commitment about purchasing the drenched paddy,” he said.
The minister told the officials to ensure that the payments are made within a week after procuring paddy from farmers. He said the paddy procurement target is 1.30 lakh metric tonnes and there are 43 rice mills that would handle this in Nirmal district.
Nirmal collector Musharaff Farooqui inspected the paddy purchasing centres in Havarga and Kistapur villages in Lokeshwaram mandal and asked the staff to speed up the procurement.
Sangepu Borranna of Rythu Swarajya Vedika said the officials are not purchasing the drenched paddy. They are cutting the 3.5 kg weight from each paddy bag in the name of high moisture content, he said.
