Sanjay Sathe, the Maharashtra farmer who drew the nation’s attention towards the plight of onion farmers in his state after sending his entire earnings from the sale of onions to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been dealt another cruel blow. A resident of Nashik’s Naitale village, Sathe decided to send the meagre ₹1,064 he’d earned by selling his harvest of onions weighing 750 kg onion (which translates to ₹1.41 a kg) in the wholesale market.
The PMO responded in a way that has left a lot of people seeing red. Instead of providing relief to the farmer, the PMO office reportedly returned the money order and asked him to pay via online transfer instead since ‘they don’t accept money orders’.
Sathe told Dainik Bhaskar that he’d hoped the money he had sent would help farmers in some way.
Days after Sathe sent the money order, the Nashik district administration came under fire for reportedly probing his political affiliation.
“I thought that they would start a probe why farmers are in distress and onion prices are crashing, but they are investigating my political affiliation. My friends and relatives are being questioned. I am just a farmer and I don’t have any connection with any political party,” Sathe told BusinessLine.
However, the district administration has categorically denied the allegations.
Earlier, Sathe had taken a tractor load of around 750 kg onion to the Niphad Agriculture Produce Market Committee wholesale market in November and was shocked to get just Rs 1.41/kg, or Rs 1,064 for the entire lot of 7.5 quintals.
The agrarian crisis faced by the onion farmers in not only restricted to Maharastra. Farmers are forced to sell onions in wholesale market at throw away prices due to a variety of factors. In MP’s Mandsaur, onions were sold for as little as 50 paise a kilo to the retailer. However, the customer is still buying the kitchen staple at Rs 25-30 in the vegetable market.
Copyright © 2024 IE Online Media Services Private Ltd. All Rights Reserved.