Cloud over ITC’s UP e-Choupal unit

The trouble started at one of the 2,000 e-Choupal centres that ITC runs across UP to help around 12,000 farmers sell grain at better rates than the Food Corporation of India (FCI), state godowns or local traders offer.

The four ITC managers stayed in prison for a week, until the company filed a writ petition in the Allahabad High Court to secure their release last Thursday. Senior company officials say local traders and junior mandi workers colluded against ITC to secure the arrest. ‘‘There has not been a single complaint from any farmer in the four years that we have been in UP,’’ an ITC spokesperson said. ‘‘This action is prompted by mandi staff and local traders, who were being cut out of their margins by the e-Choupals,’’ he added.

Organised players like ITC and Cargill offer farmers better prices than the FCI or state godowns, in addition to assured facilities like spot cash payments, better weights and measures and absolutely no cuts for middlemen.

Akhilesh Kumar Singh, a Hardoi-based farmer-cum-e-Choupal-sanchalak says, ‘‘There is a difference in weighing grain that amounts to a benefit of 40 kgs per trolley if we go to ITC. And we benefit by Rs 750 a trolley by the elimination of middlemen and extra payments.’’ In addition, farmers use e-Choupals to check mandi rates in advance, gather weather reports, assistance on fertiliser and seed purchase and share information, making them one-stop information stores.

In response to the underpayment charge levelled against it, ITC officials said even the government can make deductions on MSP, depending on grain quality.

‘‘Even if there were deductions, our prices are higher than offered by local traders or government. Besides, ours is not an arbitrary system, we are not deviating from any policy of the government,’’ the spokesperson said.

Ironically, ITC has never had a better year in UP: As against 2,000-3,000 tonnes of grain traded over last year, e-Choupal dealt with 5,000 tonnes in 2005, indicating that not everyone is happy with its success in eliminating middlemen from the farms.