Ranipet farmers demand more DPCs

RANIPET: Farmers in Ranipet, whose crops have reached the harvest stage, have demanded the TN civil supplies corporation (TNCSC) to open additional Direct Procurement Centres (DPCs) in the district as the main regulated market (RM) in Ammoor doesn’t have enough storage space.

In a parallel development, Collector S Valarmathi has asked farmers to use the RMs at Arcot or Kaveripakkam to offload their paddy for sales to private traders as the Ammoor RM would not be available due to paucity of storage space.

“The Collector’s advice will not help farmers as they will stand to lose while selling their produce to traders at RMs. The situation at Ammoor clearly demonstrates the need for additional DPCs, where alone farmers will stand to gain through government fixed price for the paddy,” said Tamilaga Vivasayigal Sangam youth wing state president R Subash and added that paddy supplied to DPCs will be sent to the PDS shops after hulling.

Though both facilities benefit farmers, the latter usually prefer DPCs as the rates offered are higher than that offered by private traders, who usually form a syndicate and decide the price for the paddy.

When asked about this, Ranipet TNCSC officials said, “apart from 14 DPCs opened on July 7, an additional 10 DPCs were opened on Thursday. DPCs are started in locations of paddy availability as farmers usually demand such facilities at locations which will benefit them.”

Stating that the 26 DPCs opened in the district in the last Sornavari paddy season were able to procure only 6000 tonnes, officials said.

Two more DPCs were likely to be opened in a few days. However, district paddy procurement this season was only 1398 tonnes through 12 of the 14 DPCs opened in the first slot. The remaining 2 DPCs started procuring paddy only a couple of days ago, they added.