Congress stages walkout in Chhattisgarh Assembly

The main opposition Congress today staged a walkout from the Chhattisgarh Assembly over alleged irregularities in paddy procurement, which they claimed caused losses to farmers.
Raising the issue through a calling attention notice on the floor of the House, the Leader of Opposition Ravindra Choubey alleged that the government's failure to ensure smooth procurement of paddy between November 1, 2012 and January 31 this year caused huge loss to farmers.
Choubey said that due to unavailability of transportation and packaging facilities, procurement centres stopped purchasing paddy much ahead of the schedule.
The Opposition leader was joined by the state Congress president Nand Kumar Patel, who claimed that the dealers from the neighbouring states dumped excessive paddy by selling it in Chhattisgarh.

In his reply, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Punnulal Mohile said that a total of 67.12 lakh metric tonne of paddy has been procured in nearly 1,947 procurement centres till January 31.
Rejecting this assessment, Choubey alleged that the government's claim was devoid of facts.

Mohile's reply that the purchase of paddy was allowed only after establishing identity of farmers on the basis of their land records failed to placate the opposition members.
The minister also dismissed the opposition's charge that the paddy from neighbouring states was being sold in Chhattisgarh.
However, the Congress members raised slogans blaming the procurement centres of not purchasing farmers' produce and staged a walkout.