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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Bonus turns bane for MP's farmers by Rukmini Shrinivasan

Bonus turns bane for MP's farmers by Rukmini Shrinivasan

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published Published on Apr 20, 2011   modified Modified on Apr 20, 2011
As Madhya Pradesh begins to harvest a bumper wheat crop, the state is finding that measures put in place to ensure that the powerful do not game the system are having the unintended effect of keeping out the most marginalised.

In anticipation of a bumper harvest, the MP government announced a Rs 100 bonus that it would pay wheat farmers above the central government-fixed Minimum Support Price of Rs 1,120. "It is always possible that traders can buy up farmers produce directly from them at cheap prices and then sell it in mandis at the MSP, posing as farmers. However this year, we heard that traders from other states too were buying up wheat and selling it in MP to take advantage of the bonus," Ajit Kesari, MP's food and civil supplies commissioner, told TOI.

As a fix, the state government announced for the first time that wheat would be purchased at MSP only from those farmers who were carrying the rin pustika, the document issued by the revenue department that shows proof of ownership. However as a result, dozens of farmers in six districts who TOI spoke to said that they were unable to sell their wheat to the government as they were contract-farming land owned by someone else. "This is a widespread practice as it is well-known that land is concentrated in the hands of the rich," said farmer and social activist Laxman Singh Rajput of Sohna village in Hoshangabad district.

Rajput himself owns 20 acres (with six others relatives) and farms 20 more acres on a contract basis. "The owner of my plot of land lives in Bhopal. He will not give me the land documents," says Rajput with certainty. "Many landowners overstate the size of the landholding that they are contracting out, and hence will not show their tenants these documents," he added.

Others are simply scared. "The owner of my land lives in Delhi. I spoke to him on the phone. He said that if I trouble him, he'll just give the land to someone else. It's all done on the basis of an understanding and I have no proof of tenancy, so I cannot upset him," said Tulsiram Prajapati, another resident of Rohna village. Moreover, in his case, as in dozens others, the landowner also belongs to the dominant caste of the village, a further deterrent against making demands.

At Itarsi mandi in Hoshangabad, brothers Naresh and Dinesh Shahu had been waiting for five days with a rented tractor because they do not have land ownership documents. "We will have to sell to traders at around Rs 1,000 since they know that we are helpless," said Naresh.

"I would rather not give my documents in the hand of the tenant. I prefer an oral arrangement, like I have at the moment," admitted one landowner-cum-trader who did not wish to be named, sitting in the traders room in Harda mandi. "The tenant can sell to private players if he likes,"he added.

Because of the good rates that the government is giving, it is only farmers who do not have the documents who are selling to us this year. "But they will have to take a cut of around Rs 200 per quintal," another trader agreed, asking not to be named.

"Tenants can get their names officially recorded in the Land Revenue Code, but if the arrangement is informal, they will not be recognized by the government for procurement," Kesari said. The farmers who were not able to get the documents would be very few, he added.

Moreover, the space in the system for farmers on informal contracts is set to further shrink. The MP government has begun collecting the biometric information of its citizens and from next year, this information will be used to authenticate the identity of the farmer at the mandi gate itself, Kesari told TOI.

The Times of India, 20 April, 2011, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Bonus-turns-bane-for-MPs-farmers/articleshow/8032078.cms


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