Centre, State govt., CCI harassing cotton farmers, alleges BRS

HYDERABAD

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has accused the State and Central governments of deceiving the farming community by colluding with ginning mills’ owners in the matter of cotton procurement by Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) at minimum support price.

Participating in a protest along with farmers and local MLA (BRS) Kova Laxmi in front of the District Collectorate at Asifabad on Saturday, general secretary of the BRS R.S. Praveen Kumar said the State and Central governments along with CCI are trying to benefit traders and mill owners by imposing all sorts of restrictions on cotton sale by farmers, including the quantity per acre.

Speaking at the protest staged by Rythu Hakkula Porata Samithi, he said the Centre had made LIC extend a loan of ₹30,000 crore to the Adani Group following the losses incurred by it and did not do anything when Vijay Mallya fled the country after defaulting on bank loans of thousands of crore. Similarly, the Congress government in the State had changed guidelines to help producers of Pushpa make huge money from high value ticket sales, he said.

The BRS leader alleged that the CCI authorities and ginning mill owners are colluding to deceive farmers and deny them support price for cotton, and the Kapas Kisan App introduced by the Centre too is harming cotton farmers. He recollected how the traders had forced farmers to sell cotton at low price after they colluded with CCI officials to create server problems, and now they are citing similar problems in the app.

Explaining the problems created by CCI to cotton farmers, Mr. Praveen Kumar said they had imposed a limit of procuring only 7 quintals of cotton per acre, fixed the moisture content limit at 12%, not procuring cotton on Saturdays and Sunday, and after 6 p.m. on weekdays. They also submitted a memorandum to the District Collector of Kumuram Bheem-Asifabad Venkatesh Dhotre with a plea to resolve all issues, and not to make enrolment on the app compulsory.