Stock yards to store farmers produce to come up in 266 places in Mysuru district

Here comes a big relief to farmers who all these years were forced to sell off their agricultural produce for lower price for want of stock yard facility nearby.

The government has started constructing storage units (godowns) in all the 266 gram panchayats in phased manner. In first phase, 95 gram panchayats have been selected. Each units will be constructed on a plot measuring 1200 square meter at the cost of Rs 11.07 lakh with storage capacity upto 8 tonnes.

This move will immensely benefit farmers, as they can store the produce for a couple of months till they get good price. The works will be taken up by Zilla Panchayat under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

The three main reasons for taking up construction of warehouses is to maintain a buffer stock; and another is as per government order fair price shops will be opened in every GP, so these storage units can be utilized for the storage of food grains for public distribution and the transit area will be used to fix minimum Fair Price.

“As of now there is no storage unit facility in gram panchayats level. This initiative is expected to benefit farmers immensely. They can store both agriculture and horticulture produces upto 8 tonnes. This provides a major relief for farmers in villages and if the produces exceeds the limit they can shift it to big warehouses located in taluk or district headquarters,” says Rameshwarappa, Deputy Director, food and Civil Supplies Department.

ZP Chief Planning Officer Prabhuswamy said: 'Already works of three storage units has been started. Each units costs around 13.45 lakhs including labour charges. The economic status of farmers improves with storage units in base levels. Transportation charges gets cut down, and farmers can sell produce when there is good demand. This apart, with jobs provided under NREGA for villagers migration can be prevented.'

Farmer leader Kuruburu Shanthakumar said its a long pending demands of farmers seeking storage units at gram panchayat levels. Along with constructing storage units, measures should be taken to construct cold storage units in taluk levels, to store locally grown vegetables.

Farmer Basavaraju said: 'Local storage facilities is the need of the hour. Without proper storage units farmers in gram panchayats were facing severe hardships. They were selling the grown crop to middleman. Now, by storing it for a couple of months, the farmers can study the market and sell the produce when they get good market.

Where and how many godowns

Mysore Taluk - 9

T Narasipur - 13

Periyapatns - 6

Hunsur - 19

Nanjangud - 14

HD Kote - 20

KR Nagar – 14