Loss to farmers is loss to nation, says HC; seeks report on direct procurement centres

Chennai: Loss to farmers is loss to the nation, said Madras high court, seeking a detailed status report from the Tamil Nadu government on direct procurement centres to buy

paddy

from farmers.Justice

Anita Sumanth

issued the directions on a petition from farmers in Ranipet and Vellore districts complaining that there were insufficient Direct Purchase Centres (DPC) of government in their region. The farmers also listed out the lack of infrastructure in the existing

DPC

and issues faced by them such as lack of godowns, transport facilities, dominance of political representatives in the Tamil Nadu consumer goods corporation, exploitation by brokers among others. According to the petition moved by

KM Venkatesan

of Thirumalpur and other farmers, there are several practical issues and rise in corruption in government’s DPC. Pointing out that the government has allocated only a single direct purchase centre for several villages, the petitioners stated that the capacity of one DPC is not sufficient for the paddy cultivated in the villages. A village which has approximately 500 acres of farmland cultivates 17,500 bags of paddy and in the recently notified list of DPCs by the government, only one out of the 27 notified DPCs has been allotted for about seven villages. This means that this DPC has to handle paddy cultivated from about 3,000 acres of farmland and as a matter of fact, a single DPC cannot handle more than 500 bags of Paddy in a day and hence, more than 200 days will be taken to procure the paddy from all these villages, not accounting for the weather conditions. “This leads to uncertainity and undue waiting and ultimately, huge loss to farmers,” the petitioners stated. Another issue, the petitioners stated is the inconveniency at several of these direct purchase centres, where there are no transport facilities, proper space for dying platform and some of the newly notified DPCs are functioning out of school buildings, library, community centres and these don’t have the proper requirements as per government norms for direct purchase centres. The petitioners sought for court intervention in directing the government to purchase about 35,000 bags of paddy stored by the farmers with great difficulty for the past five months. Justice Anita Sumanth recorded the submissions and sought a detailed report from the authorities by March 29.