Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin accused the AIADMK of trying to protect the BJP government.
Reading out a statement regarding the movement of paddy bags from direct purchase centers in the Delta after inspecting the paddy bag loading operation at the railway depot here on October 23, the Deputy Chief Minister said that about 4,000 tonnes of paddy are being moved from Thanjavur and about 2,000 tonnes from Kumbakonam and Pattukottai every day
In this case, Leader of Opposition Edappadi K. Palaniswamy made false observations about the functioning of direct purchase centres. He said non-movement of paddy fields acquired in open DPCs has led to space crisis in the centres. But in the last 50 days alone, about 1825 DPCs have been set up and about 10 million tonnes of paddy has been procured.
Of this, 81% of the paddy bags were transferred to bags and the remaining bags would be transferred to bags within a week to 10 days. Storage facilities have been created in the Delta region to store an additional 2 million tons of rice. Thus, Mr. Edappadi’s allegation was false. Further, during the last kuruvai season, only 200 DPCs were established, but this year, according to Mr. Udhayanidhi, 300 centers have been set up.
In Thanjavur district, 3,000 bags of paddy bags were procured daily at Thennamanadu and Okkamanadu Kizhaiyur conservation centers at Orathanadu Pudur and Thiruvaiyaur Vilankudi centers and 2,000 bags of paddy each. However, Mr. Edappadi claimed that only about 800 bags of paddy fish were recovered at the DPC, citing the loader’s statement. It cannot be understood that only 800 bags of paddy fish were procured at the center when 800 bags of paddy fish were procured in any of the DPCs across the state.
Necessary infrastructure has been made available to procure more than 1,000 bags of paddy, he said, adding that farmers therefore did not complain that their produce was not purchased at the DPC.
To his allegation that there were not many vehicles available to move the purchased bags from the centres. However, a total of 16,000 bags had been moved from this center till yesterday, which was opened on September 18, he added.
Against the charge of paddy sprouting, he said that the woman who had complained, who was growing paddy in Varavakottai, had not yet harvested the same. Regarding the distribution of fortified rice through the public distribution system, the Union government only appointed a team “for guidance” during July this year, adding that “instructions” are different from “consent”. The teams came to Tamil Nadu to decide whether to increase the moisture content of paddy fields from 17 percent.
Published – 23 Oct 2025 21:01 IST
