Government mum as millers exploit paddy ryots

NELLORE: Farmers’ associations are demanding that the State government take care of crop procurement process as millers are resorting to irregularities. Leaders of various associations met here on Thursday and sought the involvement of the district administration for protecting interests of the farmers.

Ch Koti Reddy from CIFA said that millers were ruling the roost during paddy procurement as the government directed that they provide gunny bags to the farmers. He said that they were collecting extra charges from farmers and also categorising the A Grade stocks as B Grade ones.

He also said there was a yield of around 9.5 lakh metric tonnes of paddy this year and the district administration procure around 2.5 lakh tonnes of paddy and till now it was below one lakh tonnes.