Farmers in Thanjavur district have raised concerns over paddy stocks being kept in the open at the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation (TNCSC) facility in Thirunageswaram, where grains are reportedly getting damaged due to exposure to sun and rain.
The Thirunageswaram unit houses a modern rice mill with seven godowns meant for storing paddy bags awaiting processing. However, farmers claim two of these godowns are occupied by around 18 lakh torn and unusable gunny sacks that have allegedly been lying there for about 10 years.
According to them, the space taken up by the discarded sacks could accommodate about 4,800 tonnes of paddy bags. They also allege that across procurement centres and open storage yards in the district, several lakh tonnes of paddy are being wasted due to inadequate protection, while officials cite “lack of godown space” as the reason.
Farmers further claimed that when Food Minister Venkataramanan and Agriculture Minister Vinoth visited for an inspection recently, officials prevented them from examining the storage situation. They said new sacks should be used once every three years and old sacks should be disposed of; although a tender was floated last year to clear old sacks, no bidder came forward.
Attempts to seek a response from TNCSC Senior Regional Manager Selva were unsuccessful, as he did not take calls, the report said.
