Seeds of Betrayal

Forget about doubling their income, Haryana's farmers are living a life in penury

- Vikram Raj

ON a sultry May afternoon, 51-year-old Mahendra Singh wanders barefoot in Hisar’s new grain mandi (market). After a while, he gets tired and sits down on a pile of sacks filled with mustard. Mahendra says he has been coming to this market every day for the last 26 days, but no one is ready to buy his mustard crop at the Minimum Support Price (MSP) as promised by the government. Due to lack of electricity and water facilities in the villages, he had rented a generator for the maintenance of the crops. As he could not sell his crops, he has not been able to return the outstanding money for the generator to the owner. “This government has made us sad. Neither our crops are getting sold, nor are our children getting jobs,” says Mahendra.

Shyam Singh, an adhati (broker) from the same mandi, is trying to help Mahendra Singh. “For the last few years, the government has digitised the process of selling and buying crops. The work that we used to do here earlier is now being done on an online portal developed by the government. This has created a lot of confusion among farmers,” he says.