Months after lifting siege, farmers back at Adani silos to sell wheat
Months after lifting the year-long siege at the Adani Group-run silos in Moga, over protest against the Centre’s nowrepealed agricultural laws, local farmers are back at their doors instead of going to government procurement centres.
Reason: Farmers from nearby villages claim they save time and get hassle-free service at these silos constructed and operated by Adani Agro Logistics at Dagru village in Moga district.
Notably, the private firm has no control over the procurement process, as the silos have been rented by the Food Corporation of India (FCI), which purchases the crop from farmers at the
minimum support price (MSP) fixed by the government as is being done by state agencies at mandis.
In October 2020, farmers had laid siege to the silos, bringing
fresh procurement and transportation of the stored crop to a halt, soon after the Centre passed the three farm laws deregulating the system of government-run wholesale markets that the unions feared would leave them at the mercy of private players.
The protest was lifted after the laws were repealed in November last year. Now, farmers are again crowding the silos, but to unload their crop. Balbir Singh, a farmer waiting in a queue of tractor-trolleys with his produce, says it takes at least 24-30 hours for lifting the crop at mandis, but at the Adani silo they get free in less than 10 hours.
“We have to unload the wheat at mandis and use a winnowing fan to clean it before putting it into the gunny bags. Here, we directly unload our produce from trolleys,” he says.
Another farmer, Jasvir Singh, says the whole trolley is weighed at one time and they have to do nothing else. “We come here only for the hassle-free system; otherwise the price paid is the same. However, there are no other charges, including winnowing and cleaning labour, which costs around ₹15-16 per quintal,” he says. The total savings come to around ₹1,300-1,400 per trolley.
Threefold jump
The silos, which got operational in 2007 with a capacity to store two-lakh tonnes of grain, were constructed after signing a 20-year contract with the FCI for providing storage and transportation infrastructure. Complete railhead exists within the silos premises, and bulk transportation is done using special trains.
The FCI pays ₹10 crore as rent to Adani Group for each procurement season to store agricultural produce. Other charges are paid separately, when produce is moved through trains.
Amandeep Singh Soni, cluster manager, Adani Agri Logistics, Moga, said: “The company has no role in deciding the volume of storage as well as pricing of grain, as it’s only an infrastructure and service provider for the FCI, which controls the procurement and movement of food grains for the public distribution system (PDS). This year, 22,000 tonnes of grain has been stored in silos so far, compared to 7,000 tonnes during the same period in past years. Last year, there was no procurement due to the farmers’ protest.”