Gariaband. There is still about a month left for the paddy procurement to begin in Chhattisgarh, but even before that, paddy from Odisha has started getting dumped in the border districts of Chhattisgarh. As soon as the news of this was received, the Devbhog administration took action and seized 520 sacks of paddy from houses within the last two days
Like every year, this time too middlemen have started hoarding paddy from Odisha in the border districts of Chhattisgarh. The administration, well aware of this game, has started raiding the hideouts of hoarders on the lines of ‘you go for the branch, I go for the leaf’. In this connection, on Friday, Tehsildar Chidesh Devangan raided Goharapadar and confiscated 72 sacks of paddy from Cheman’s house, 110 sacks from Hiradhar’s house and 120 sacks from Rakhoram’s house.A day earlier on Thursday, SDM Tulsi Das along with Naib Tehsildar Vijay Singh raided Kadlimuda and confiscated 218 bags of paddy dumped in houses. Naib Tehsildar Vijay Singh said that 158 bags were confiscated from the house of Parikshit Mali, a resident of Kadlimuda, and 60 packets of paddy were confiscated from the house of Laldhar.
The revenue department did a physical verification of the land holdings of both, in which Parikshit’s land holding was zero, but additional paddy was found in Laldhar’s house than the land holdings. The paddy which was found packed in plastic packets from Odisha was confiscated. The officers said that if illegal storage of paddy is found after checking the land holdings, action will continue.
The game started a month ago
This game of dumping had started a month ago. When the Devbhog administration got wind of it, it started arresting people 15 days ago. Many pickup trucks loaded with paddy were also on the administration’s radar. When Collector Deepak Agarwal got wind of illegal transportation and storage, he issued strict instructions for action. In such a situation, the Devbhog administration is getting success in seizing paddy from Odisha by conducting raids at places where paddy was dumped, not vehicles.
Purchase will be done in Odisha from December
Chhattisgarh: Most of the area here does not yield 15 quintals of paddy per acre, and to compensate for this, paddy is being left at the houses of farmers and middlemen at the rate of Rs 2300 per quintal. It is being said that this time the Odisha government will also purchase paddy at the support price of Rs 3100, but this purchase will be done in December at the rate of 15 quintals per acre. In such a situation, the farmers there have started selling the extra production through middlemen.
