The food department stopped purchasing rice, saying the quota had run out.
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Farmers are angry after the Mahendranagar office of the Food Management and Trading Company Limited stopped the purchase of rice. On Wednesday, farmers reached the food office and demanded to purchase rice.
‘Earlier, they said they would distribute tokens to purchase paddy, but now they have stopped saying the quota has been met,’ said Ishwari Dutta Bhatta, a farmer from Suda, Bedkot Municipality-7. ‘We have been coming to ask for tokens since the day the thorn appeared. Sometimes they say something and sometimes something else.’ He has to sell 10/12 quintals of paddy.’
‘I have been coming for tokens for three/four days, but now they say that paddy will not be purchased,’ said Kaluram Chaudhary, a farmer from Ultakham, Bhimdutta Municipality-2, who reached the food office on Wednesday morning. ‘From paddy harvesting to threshing and ploughing the fields for wheat, everything is on loan. Now the food department says it will not buy paddy. It is being purchased at seven/eight hundred rupees cheaper than the food department in the market. How will we repay the loan now?’ Kalu and his brother Churam have to sell about 20 quintals of paddy.
Food is purchasing coarse rice at 3,463 per quintal and medium rice at 3,688 per quintal. Traders in the market are buying at around 2,500 per quintal. Farmers are attracted to selling to Food because the price is better than the market price.
Food has started purchasing paddy in Mahendranagar from Kartik 16. Paddy was purchased through the token system. Tokens had been distributed before Kartik 20 for the period up to Mangsir 3. Farmers who came after that were told that they would get tokens only after the 3rd.
‘Today, the quota has been exhausted, now we have to sell rice to traders at a low price,’ said Jeevan Bahadur Bhandari of Shuklaphanta Municipality-3, ‘Khadya has also purchased rice from traders in the name of farmers, 40/50 quintals of a single farmer have been purchased.’ He accused Khadya of also purchasing rice from traders in collusion.
Mahikaran Mahara, head of the Food Management and Trade Company Limited, Mahendranagar, said that rice was not purchased from traders. He said that in the case of farmers with more than 10 quintals of rice, it was purchased based on the recommendation of the ward office. According to him, there is a provision to purchase from 1 quintal to 50 quintals from a farmer, so the purchase was made accordingly.
Khadya had set a quota of 5,000 quintals of rice purchase in Mahendranagar. Since the quota has been fulfilled, Mahara says that more rice can be purchased only after the quota is increased. "We write down the names of the farmers and send them to the center for quota addition, and only after the quota is added can the purchase be made," he said. "We have demanded an additional quota of at least 5,000 quintals to address the farmers' demand." According to Mahara, paddy has been purchased from 190 farmers so far. The names of 300 more farmers have been collected. Farmers are continuing to come. Last year, the food department had set a quota of 15,000 quintals of paddy in Mahendranagar. But at that time, only 3,300 quintals were purchased. That is why the quota has been reduced this time, says Mahara, the office head.
