Karnataka - Shimoga   

Areca growers demand support price

By Our Special Correspondent

Former Minister Kagodu Thimmappa addressing arecanut growers who staged a dharna in Shimoga on Tuesday.

SHIMOGA, FEB. 22. Areca growers staged a dharna on the premises of the Deputy Commissioner's office here on Tuesday demanding, among other things, minimum support price for their produce.

The main demands of the demonstrators included the creation of a separate board for areca to protect the interests of its growers; creation of the growers' market; waiving of the interest on the loan taken for the areca growing and earmarking of at least Rs. 20 crores by the Government to announce the minimum support price for arecanut.

The demonstration was jointly organised by the Akhil Bharat Abhiraksha Mandalam (Areca Growers') Welfare Association and the Sagar and the Shimoga Prantya Adike Belegarara Sanghs.

The growers urged the Chief Minister, N. Dharam Singh, to consider their plea for the fixation of the minimum support price of Rs.10,000 per quintal of red variety of Areca and Rs. 6,500 for chaali variety.

Intervention sought

They sought the Government's intervention in the market by announcing the minimum support price and come to the rescue of the areca growers who are forced to go in for distress sale.

They said that it is only through strengthening their organisations that they could seek justice at a time when the areca market is being dominated by "unscrupulous" and "illegal" activities by traders and middlemen.

The demonstrators warned that they will intensify their agitation by staging a dharna in front of the Vidhana Soudha in Bangalore if the Government failed to come to their rescue.

The former Minister Kagodu Thimmappa; the MLA from Bhadravati, Sangamesh; the former MLAs from Hosnagar G.D. Narayanappa and L.T. Thimmappa Hegde from Sagar, the President of the Shimoga District Central Cooperative Bank R.M. Manjunath Gowda; the President of the Sagar Prantya Adike Belegarara Sangh, B.R. Jayanth; and the Municipal President, B.A. Ramesh Hegde; joined the demonstrators at the dharna.

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