Farmers Burn Chilli Even As TRS Claims Their Love

Even as the TRS leaders including Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao were in a celebratory mood at the party's Foundation Day public meeting in Warangal, distressed chilli farmers were setting fire to their produce in the neighbouring districts following a steep fall in chilli prices.

Even as the Chief Minister and other leaders were saying in the meeting that the TRS government was committed to the welfare of farmers and that it was initiating farmer-friendly measures, distressed farmers resorted to the extreme measure in protest against what they claimed was the apathy of the market committee officials and exploitation by the trader-broker nexus in the Agricultural Market Yard at Khammam.

Farmers resorted to setting their produce on fire for want of minimum support price even at other places including Mancherial, Jangaon and Warangal.

According to reports, tension has been prevailing in the last few days in the Khammam Agricultural Market Yard where farmers have been dumping their chilli produce. As many as 2.5 lakh bags of chillis were dumped by the farmers on Thursday alone, flooding the marketyard with red chillis.

The farmers alleged that they have been forced to wait to sell their produce for the last few days as the officials of the marketyard were promising to procure them at increased prices in some time. However, after the officials of the marketyard refused to procure the produce even on Friday, the traders with the connivance of middlemen started buying at distress prices on the roads. The farmers wanted the marketyard officials to procure their produce on Friday as the yard would remain closed for three days starting Saturday and reopen only on Tuesday. But to the chagrin of the farmers, some traders started buying the products at a very low price, and according to one farmer, the prices had come down by Rs 3,000 per quintal.

Enraged over this, the farmers raided the offices of the Agriculture Market Yard Chairman and Secretary, and damaged the weighing machines, furniture and other equipment after smashing the glass panes and windows, and set fire to the scores of bags of chillis lying in the yard.

The marketyard officials including the Secretary ran for their lives as the frenzied farmers went berserk. However, the police rushed to the spot and disciplined the unruly farmers by resorting to mild lathi-charge.

The farmers complained that the prices they were being offered for their year-long struggle were a pittance and would not meet even the transport charges. They lamented that they would be forced to commit suicides as they were being driven to starvation. Some of them asked what the use of KCR promising Rs 4,000 seed money per acre for the farmers was, when they were not able to get even a minimum support price. The assistance being offered would not suffice to meet even their funeral expenses, bemoaned one farmer.