Farmers facing hardships in paddy procurement process: Cong

Congress today accused the ruling BJP in Chhattisgarh of creating trouble for farmers in the name of registration process for procurement of paddy on support price in the state.
"The farmers are facing problems for registration. The state government is doing nothing but just troubling the farmers in the name of registration for paddy procurement," State Congress chief Bhupesh Baghel told reporters here.
He further said that he state government had relaxed the registration process last year in the poll-bound state and this year unnecessarily the process has been made completed creating woes for the farmers.
"Around 15,69,397 farmers were registered under the paddy procurement process during last year assembly polls, out of which 11,60,360 farmers had taken its benefits. Only 2,65,017 farmers have been enrolled this year in the process which begun on September 1," Baghel said.

Now it seems hard to cater as much number of the farmers in such a short span time as the registration process concluding on September 30, he claimed.
Accusing the ruling government of willingly complicating the process, he said, if the situation continues, the farmers have to sell their paddy to middlemen at throwaway prices and subsequently the middlemen would earn benefit by further selling it to cooperatives.
New registration rules are not viable for farmers as many of them don't have voter ID, Adhaar card required for the purpose.
Besides, mobile numbers have also been asked for the registration, even after knowing that peasants generally do not use mobile phones, he said.