While expressing satisfaction with promise of the Tobacco Board chairman, the Karnataka State Tobacco Growers’ Action Committee, Hunsur, has reiterated its demand for a CBI inquiry into the irregularities with regards to tobacco licences.
Board chairman Suresh Babu said in Mysore yesterday that nearly 31,000 unauthorised licences were regularised. However, fresh licences were not issued for the last five years. In Karnataka, 23,000 parties had applied for a licence to cultivate tobacco. Action committee honorary president Harihara Anandaswamy told reporters today that the tobacco growers welcomed the promise given to the Action Committee yesterday by the chairman over regularising the unauthorised licences and permitting the non-licencees to participate in the tobacco auction.
The farmers were happy with his promise to levy only 5 per cent cess on those who had grown excess tobacco, he said and appealed to cultivators to provide correct figures of the tobacco cultivated by them to the marketing centres concerned.
He, however, reiterated the committee demand for a CBI inquiry into the irregularities in regularising licences by the board officials. The Mysore deputy commissioner had recommended the committee’s demand for such an inquiry in view of the failure of the board officials to give convincing answers over the committee’s allegations that local officials had colluded with certain vested interests in issuing and regularising tobacco licences and the officials themselves were engaged in business.
Anandaswamy said the chairman expressed a sense of helplessness over the committee demand to take action against the corrupt officials and their removal from service. The chairman had transferred them to the nearby marketing centres, while the committee had demanded their transfer outside state.
as they were operating at the same centres for over 25 years.
The tobacco cultivators of the area would meet on August 16 at Hunsur to discuss these and other issues and plan further course of action, committee member Nagaraje Gowda added.