By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, March 23, 2016 : Even as the Odisha government is desperate to end the ongoing stir by farmers in the state, it faces gigantic problems in resolving plethora of issues revolving around farmers.

As a first steps, the state government on Wednesday decided to resolve problems faced by farmers over the availability of sacks during procurement of paddy-one of the demands raised by Naba Nirman Krushak Sangathan (NNKS).

The decision in this regard was taken during a meeting between food supplies and consumer welfare minister Sanjay Das Burma and representatives of NNKS here.

The minister appealed NNKS to withdraw their stir saying that another meeting will be held on Saturday to deliberate on other issues raised by the farmers’ organization.

“Members of NNKS are agitating on certain demands. Their demands were discussed at today’s meeting. The state government is prepared to solve the issue of gunny bags raised by them. Another meeting will be held at 4 PM on March 26. Principal secretaries of Food Supplies, Agriculture, Cooperation and Fisheries departments will be present at the meeting. Demands of NNKS will be discussed during the meeting,” said Das Burma.
NNKS, however, remains unrlented deciding to continue the six-day agitation. It even threatened to launch an agitation to force poice to send them to jail.

“This is a satyagraha. The government should admit that farmers have committed suicide due to crop loss and loan burden. Registration for procurement of paddy from farmers is not being done in a proper manner. While farmers owning land can register for selling their paddy to the government what about share croppers who do not have land but want to sell their produce? Until this aspect is considered by the government 70% of farmers will not be benefitted. There is no social security allowance for farmers. The government should make a provision for a social security allowance of Rs 5,000 for a farmer in the budget which will cost the Rs 21,600 crore. If the government fails to fulfill our demands then we will launch jail bharo agitation from March 29,” said Akshay Kumar coordinator NNKS talking.

Meanwhile, the State government’s move to roll out direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme in the ensuing khariff season also faces opposition by NNKS, which has raised doubt over the implementation of the scheme as the State government is yet to identify sharecroppers in Odisha.

“Has the State government identified sharecroppers? If not, then how it is claiming that the DBT scheme will benefit the farming community? For whose benefit the scheme is going to be implemented in the State?” Akshya Kumar asked saying that the cash transaction under the scheme would not be practical in the absence of banking services in villages.

“Out of 6238 gram panchayats, 4,604 are unbanked gram in the State. And how the State government is expecting to start the scheme in this khariff season and is claiming that it will benefit the farmers? Kumar asked.

He informed that nearly 70% of farmers don’t have bank accounts in their names.

However, the agriculture department, which has set April 15 deadline for enrollment of farmers to avail the scheme, said it will stick to its deadline.

“The scheme will be implemented across the State in this khariff season,” agriculture minister Pradeep Maharathy said.

Under the scheme, the Odisha government aims to give farmers Rs 1000 subsidy on purchase of per quintal of seeds. The State government has also notified that to avail the facility, the farmers have to register their names with the Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) or Large Area Multi Purpose Society (LAMPS).