Strike cripples tobacco auctions at 20 Tobacco Board platforms

Auctions at all the 20 Tobacco Board platforms in Nellore, Prakasam, Guntur, Krishna, West Godavari and Khammam districts came to a stop on Monday as the board staff struck work in protest against an attack on the superintendent of Kaligiri (Nellore) platform by a farmer.

Consequently, the last phase of auctions, scheduled to begin on Monday at Bhadrachalam and Thorredu (Khammam), Kanchikacherla (Krishna) and Guntur floors, did not take off. The staff relented after a meeting of farmer leaders, board members, traders and exporters with Tobacco Board chairman P Dayachari.

Dayachari condemned the attack and promised union leaders that such incidents would not recur and that they would be provided with full security. The staff are expected to resume work on Tuesday. Another resolution wanted Dayachari to conceive a market intervention scheme with an initial outlay of Rs 50 crore.

It appealed to the Centre to permit implementation of the scheme. It also asked the board, state and Central governments to go into the root cause of such attacks, which are on the increase in recent days, and arrive at a solution that would solve the issue.

The incident, which took place on Friday, sparked off the strike in a few platforms on Saturday last week, and spread to all the platforms on Monday. The Kaligiri auction floor superintendent, Sthapak, was in fact very popular among farmers.

A farmer, who could not get a remunerative price for his crop even after three days of stay at the floor, is said to have lost patience and doused the official with petrol. Other farmers nabbed him and prevented him from lighting a matchstick. A police case has been registered.

Dayachari said the board would in the next 10 days prepare a code of conduct to be followed by farmers, traders and staff. The board would also devise some method of market intervention to stabilise prices at the auction floors.

Speakers at the meeting, who included G Seetharamaiah, C Venkateswara Rao, Yelamanchili Sivaji, C Ranga Rao, Indian Tobacco Association president Chebrolu Narendranath, board officers' union leader Venkatasubbaiah, felt that a price variation of Rs 3-4 per kg, observed last week, had disturbed farmers.

Quality tobacco fetched farmers Rs 51 per kg at the start of this season. The rates now vacillate around Rs 44. For the same quality tobacco farmers were offered different prices, one higher and the other lower, at the same time. The violent incident was only a sequel to such a trend, they said.

However, traders blamed market dynamics for price variations. The farmer leaders demanded that the Centre immediately release the Rs 60 crore cess it had collected from farmers. With this amount the board should begin tobacco purchases, they said.

Meanwhile, the Tobacco Producers' Cooperative Society, which has received Rs 5 crore from the state government, will begin tobacco purchases in a day or two. Not even 10 per cent of the estimated 141 million kg crop has so far been purchased after auctions began on January 23.