Congress kissan wing threatens agitation

BHUBANESWAR: The kissan wing of the Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) has threatened to launch an agitation from June 7 if the state government failed to provide seeds to the farmers in the next three days.Announcing this at a news conference here today, president of the OPCC Kissan Khet Mazdoor Congress Amiya Kumar Patnaik said that in the case of failure of the state government to provide paddy seeds in three days , farme r s of 1 9 panchayats of the Bhubaneswar block will demonstrate in front of the office of the block development officer (BDO) here.Patnaik said though the State Government has set a target to provide 6.12 lakh quintals paddy seeds to the farmers, so far 1.82 lakh quintals have been supplied.As the government has failed to fixed the price of seeds in time, in many places they had to purchase at exorbitant rates, he said.Giving example of the Bhubaneswar block, Patnaik said that over 16,000 farmers here need 1500 quintals of paddy seeds. But the State Government has fixed a target to provide 900 quintals of seeds in the block, he said and added that so far only 250 quintals of seeds have been supplied.Patnaik alleged that though farmers had suffered 70 percent crop loss last year because of drought and the unseasonal rainfall, the State Government is yet to compensate them even after getting central assistance. Describing the State Government as anti-farmer, Patnaik said that farmers in many places of the state are sitting on a dharna because of shortage of seeds.He said the State Government gets bonus of Rs 500 per quintal on paddy seeds from the Centre which adds up to Rs 32 crore. Similarly, for non-paddy seeds the assistance is Rs 14 crore. The total central assistance to the farmers on seeds alone is Rs 46 crore per year, but this do not percolate down to them, he said.