Gujarat revenue officials, who have been asked to assist the civil supplies department in procuring groundnuts from farmers, Wednesday urged the state government that they should not be given the task as they had no experience in it.
They also told the government that they were already "overburdened".
Currently the state government's civil supplies department procures groundnuts from farmers under the Centre's price support scheme. But recently, the deputy mamlatdars of revenue department were asked to assist the civil supplies department officials by taking care of the administrative part of the job.
A union of the revenue department employees Wednesday wrote to Revenue Minister Kaushik Patel urging him that they be kept away from the task as they had no experience in it.
Devesh Patel, president of Gujarat State Revenue Employees Union, said asking the deputy mamlatdars to do the job of procuring groundnuts is an "injustice to farmers".
"Deputy mamlatdar is an administrative officer. Revenue department employees do not have any experience in the purchase of groundnuts and a deputy mamlatdar cannot determine the quality of groundnuts," he said.
More From This Section
"This task will also put additional burden on the already overburdened department wherein 40 per cent posts are vacant. Therefore, we have written to the revenue minister requesting him not to assign the task to the deputy mamlatdar," he said.
Talking to PTI, Revenue Minister Kaushik Patel said deputy mamlatdars have been asked to assist the civil supplies department officials in procurement of groundnuts by taking care of administrative part of the job.
"The deputy mamlatdars have to take care of the administrative part in the procurement of groundnuts done by the civil supplies department," he said.
"But we have received a representation from them. We will explain to them that the job assigned to them is administrative. They are concerned as never before were they involved in a job of this nature," the minister added.
NAFED vice chairman and former Gujarat minister Dilip Sanghani said that the move will "affect the purchase work."
Reacting to the development, Union Minister of State for Agriculture Parshottam Rupala said, "Revenue department officials have opposed the task they have been assigned. I hope the state government makes some alternative arrangement and ensures that the farmers don't suffer."