Chaos and mismanagement prevailed at Alot’s Gurukripa procurement centre, where purchasing of wheat had to be stalled for a few hours.
Thanks to a good harvest, farmers are thronging to the procurement centres across the state. It is resulting in long queues of farmers outside the procurement centres.
Meanwhile, delay in weighing and some mismanagement at the centre caused chaos at the said centre in Alot.
Alot witnessed dispute like situation at the Gurukripa procurement centre, where farmers started protesting following delaying in weighing. Due to chaos, weighing has been stopped for an hour. After police intervention, farmers ready to weigh their harvest. Many of the farmers who are waiting for their turn accused officials for mismanagement. Farmers claimed that they had received SMS asking them to come with their harvest for weighing on the day. But they are forced to wait in queue for last five days. They added that officials are allowing farmers to weigh their crop out of turn.
Civil supplies officer Akash Gaur said that once farmer got SMS, he has to bring his entire crop, but many of the farmers who are waiting for their turns bringing their crop in a parts and that leads to chaos. Farmers have to wait for their turn until they got new SMS.
The state has a unique SMS system wherein only those farmers who get the SMS will have to come with their wheat to sell at the designated Mandi at the fixed date and time mentioned.
Political cost
Meanwhile, mismanagement at the centres not only costs farmers dearly, but state government as well ahead of bypolls in the state. Notably, state going to by-polls on 24 assembly constituencies and farmers once again will play crucial role.
When contacted local BJP farmer leader Opendra Singh Yadav said that due to stipulated time limit, farmers and officials are facing some problem. Congress farmer leader Ramesh Pathak had same thought. Pathak said that state witnessed bumper harvest this year. Administration sending SMS to the farmers and following this, they are coming at the procurement centre, but mismanagement at the centre left hundreds of farmers dejected.
Complains galore
As per the reports, Madhya Pradesh alone has procured 113.38 lakh tonnes, which is nearly 55 per cent more than previous season’s total wheat procurement in the State, that is nearly 73 LT. This is when the procurement was delayed almost a fortnight in the state due to lockdown. The procurement agencies working with State agencies procured 341.56 LT of wheat till Sunday as the Centre has set a procurement target of 400 LT for the current rabi marketing season
However, despite claims of the officials, farmers complained that in several mandis the mobile Short-Messaging System (SMS) isn’t working properly. As a result, they were compelled to stand in queue for hours to sell their wheat.
Farmers have also complained of mismanagement in weighing process or officers present at the procurement centre ignoring them and allowing farmers whom they know personnel to weigh their harvest before them.
