CM Vijay anti-corruption campaign falls on deaf ears at DPCs

TIRUCHY: The Chief Minister C Joseph’s Vijay’s campaign of corruption free departments seems to be unheard in the DPCs. There is no seriousness in adapting the required change, but instead the reckless staff at the DPCs continue to collect bribes for paddy procurement from the farmers.

“Instead of retricting themselves they have boldly increased the bribe amount from Rs 40 per bag previousely to Rs 60,” say the affected farmers. “They are forced to give bribes or else their paddy stocks would be kept pending for days for procurement,” the farmers say.

Farmers say bribe has increased to Rs 60 per bag

According to farmers the major problem faced by them is the need to grease the palms of the procurement staff. They claimed that the staff quoting their low pay used to deduct a minimum of Rs 40 per bag before paying the farmer their due amount until the previous government.

Now under the new government, the staff has started demanding between Rs 50 and 60 per bag based on the quantity of the paddy that is brought to the DPCs.

Swamimalai Sundara Vimalnathan, the secretary of Tamil Nadu Cauvery Farmers Protection Association claimed that the bribe during the AIADMK government was Rs 40 per bag and it was increased to Rs 50 per bag during DMK government and now, in the TVK government, the staff collect upto Rs 60 per bag.

“One bag contains 40 kg of paddy and on an average, a farmer has to give Rs 150 per quintal of paddy. A farmer gets an average yield of 20 quintals (2 tons) per acre and thus, he has to spend Rs 3,000 on bribe,” he said and added that they have been demanding the government to prevent bribes by all means so that there is smooth procurement of paddy.

DPC staff blame lorry drivers' 'tips' for the practice

However, the DPC staff claimed that the lorry drivers demand ‘tips’ between Rs 2,000 and 3,000 per day and they opt to give priority for loading the paddy where they get higher tips.“These forces us to collect the bribe for a smooth process,” the staff says.

Recent raids by DVAC at a DPC in Thanjavur district and seizure of unaccounted cash from the staff plays a testimony for the claims of the farmers and they appealed to the state government to tighten the DPC procurement process and prevent the bribe culture.