Cotton buying: Traders offer farmers high rate for old currency

CHANDIGARH: Traders are offering Rs 4,900 per quintal for raw cotton but are ready to pay Rs 5,300 per quintal to the farmers if they accept the old currency notes demonetized by the government. Similar tactics are being employed by traders for other crops like paddy and moong (green gram). Farmer leaders say that traders were not ready to buy their crops at prevailing rates, causing them losses.
A farmer from Kalod village in Bhiwani district, Suraj Bhan told TOI that an offer on those lines was made to him when he sold his 4.5 quintal of raw cotton in his village recently.
Another farmer from the same village, Rattan Singh said, “The same formula of rates was laid out before me when I inquired about raw cotton prices from a trader in the village on Saturday.”
Sources said the traders were taking benefit of currency crunch as even government agencies were not able to make spot payments for crops. Bharat Singh, who had sold moong (green gram) worth Rs 2 lakh to a government agency in Siwani town of Bhiwani district, got the payment in his account in the local cooperative society from where he was entitled to withdraw Rs 5,000 per week only.
“His amount was deposited in a cooperative society. As per rules, a person can withdraw Rs 24,000 per week from a bank but the cooperative society offers weekly withdrawal of Rs 5,000 only. So, imagine, how many weeks, he has to wait to withdraw the entire amount,” said fellow villager Sunil Kumar.
A senior leader of All India Kisan Sabha’s Haryana unit, Dayanad Poonia said similar tactics were being applied for other crops, including moong. “In cotton, there is loss of Rs 400 per quintal to the farmers. But they have to accept the same because they don’t want to take any risk by accepting old notes. While the products of farmers are bought on cheaper rates, fertilizers are offered on higher rates,” he alleged.
“Farmers from paddy belt of the state have also reported similar tactics by traders,” claimed Gurnam Singh Chaduni, president of Bhartiya Kisan Union’s Haryana unit.
Haryana agriculture minister Om Prakash Dhankar said such instances were not in his knowledge. “But we will ask the officers to verify such allegations. We won’t allow agents to cheat farmers in the name of old and new notes. If any farmer encounters such a thing, he should complain to the marketing board, which will take prompt action,” said Dhankar
However, an arhtiya (commission agent) from Fatehabad town, Sunil Bansal said they were offering cheques to farmers. “It’s difficult to pay the entire amount immediately because of limitations of transactions of the new currency. So, we have found this way to help out the farmers. Even the farmers have started giving us cheques to buy seeds and fertilizers,” he added.