Elderly farmer touches PACS staffer’s feet for urea in Medak

An elderly farmer in Medak touched the feet of a PACS staff member while seeking two bags of urea after failing to book it online. The incident highlighted farmers’ difficulties, with others protesting against online booking and demanding manual sales

Medak: Unable to book urea online, an elderly farmer touched the feet of a primary agriculture society (PACS) staff member, requesting him to give him two bags of urea.

The farmer Boyini Ramulu (62), a resident of Chitkul in Chilipched mandal, arrived at the PACS, Rangampet in Kulcharam mandal on Wednesday, wanting to buy two bags of urea. The farmer had cultivated paddy on his one-and-a-half-acre land. After marrying off his two daughters, Ramulu was staying with his wife in the village.

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The elderly couple were eking out a livelihood by cultivating paddy on the land. There is no educated person in the family to book the urea on a mobile application. The farmer had no smartphone either, making the urea booking online further difficult. The farmer offered to give Rs 900 per bag of urea against less than Rs 300 MSP, by pleading with the staff at PACS, Rangampet.

The video, which exposed the farmers’ struggles and government’s inability to supply sufficient urea to farmers, went viral on social media. The farmers have demanded the government to sell the urea bags manually, to help illiterate farmers. Similar issues were reported across the erstwhile Medak district on Wednesday. The farmers staged a rasta-roko at Polampally in Chegunta, demanding the government cancel the online booking of urea with immediate effect.

The farmers further demanded the Congress make sufficient urea available at the selling points. The traffic came to a standstill here as the protest continued for more than an hour. The police convinced the farmers to withdraw the protest and assured them that they would take the issue to the notice of higher officials.