Orissa Agriculture Minister has charged that the farmers of Orissa are not being supplied with enough fertilizers during the Kharif season.

There is a lingering shortage of fertilizers and this is not being remedied by the central government. The farmers are facing immense difficulties, the minister added.

Odisha has accused the center of creating a scarcity of fertilizers in the state. The state needs over seventy thousand metric tonnes of fertilizers by the close of this month but there are no indications the center would help the state meet its needs.

Sources say as the prices of chemical fertilizers have gone astronomically high, the farmers of Odisha are shifting to the use of urea which is comparatively cheap.

But even urea is not being supplied to the state. The central government is playing politics in the matter, sources add.

Earlier Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik had dashed off a letter the Prime Minister suggesting downward revision of fertilizer prices and enough supply of fertilizers but his letter fell on deaf ears.

Meanwhile, Odisha govt is resolved to tackle rampant corruption and black-marketing in the distribution of fertilizers and it has already booked a number of erring traders and fertilizer agencies, sources claim.

Sudha is a household name in Bihar. It conjures up images of milk and milk products in plenty. Cooperative Milk Producers Federation of Bihar (comfed) that owns it and sells its products under the brand Sudha is set to expand and popularize its business.

The company is reported to have hired the services of several advertising agencies to launch a promotional blitz to promote its brand beyond Bihar.

Comfed markets a range of milk products under the brand Sudha. The most popular products include gulab jamun, rasogulla, yoghurt [plain, sweet] paneer, lassi, ice cream and peda. Comfed does not sell them only in Bihar but also in West Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and North East.

Comfed plans to augment its collection of milk from a million litres to 5 million litres in the years ahead. The Bihar dairy major has also its eye on the country’s capital Delhi and would soon pitch a tent there for doing business.

The  cooperative circles in Orissa are in jitters  as  the Supreme Court has stayed the Orissa high court order quashing the  state govt nominated councils  for managing the cooperative banks in the state. The latter had earlier challenged the high court order in the apex court.

It is noteworthy that Orissa govt had  constituted its own councils for managing the cooperative banks as it was not happy with the way the so-called elected councils were running them.

However, the cooperative banks had opposed the govt move and got the govt nominated councils quashed by the Orissa high court.

While staying the high court verdict, the apex court asked the cooperative organizations to present their case for the final settlement of the matter.

In the meantime following the Supreme Court order, the state govt nominated councils would   begin managing the cooperative organisations in the state and the elected councils of these organisations would stand invalidated.

There are unmistakable indications that the Orissa govt is bent on controlling the lever of power of the cooperative sector in the state. It already has shown its determination to do so by enforcing the Orissa cooperative societies act, 2011.

A sudden storage tank explosion at a cooperative sugar producing unit in Ganjam district  of Orissa  killed three persons  including a woman and two boys on Monday.

The explosion was so powerful that it caused a massive amount of molasses to run over the living quarters of those killed in the incident.

Orissa Chief Minister Navin Patnaik who was in the area in connection with the Panchayati elections  called off his campaign.

In a move to relieve tension gripping the area , the local police have sprung into action investigating the incident.

Though it tried to carry out its corporate responsibility, little did Iffco cooperative giant realize that its fund would be mis-utilized by the non-cooperative sector.

The forest officials in Paradip, Orissa have been found indulging in misappropriation of funds deposited by the Iffco’s local unit for plantation of trees on Kandarpur-Machgaon road under its corporate social responsibility.

A vigilance enquiry has revealed that the Iffco funds amounting to more than crore rupees have not been used in accordance with the proposals and guidelines given by the works department.

The inordinate delay in action being taken against the guilty forester has, however shocked the local people.

The vigilance department has raided  Rajendra Narayan Mohapatra’s residential house and his several other properties seizing  assets worth more than 50 lakhs  from him.

Mohapatra is the manager of a cooperative bank in Sundargarh district in Orissa.

The raid was conducted in compliance with the search warrant issued by the court of special judge vigilance , Sambalpur.

Orissa State Vigilance has arrested the General Manager of Urban Cooperative Bank, Cuttack, on charges of conniving with an unscrupulous trading agency and providing it a hefty loan without following proper procedures.

The Vigilance sleuths raided the office of General Manager Nilakantha Das, who has been produced before the court and remanded in judicial custody till September 7.

According to Vigilance officials, Das was allegedly involved in extension of loan to the tune of Rs. 2.21 crore to one Shiva Chrome Chemicals Private Limited, Chandikhol, between 2000 and 2004 in conspiracy with owners of the firm as well as fellow officials of the bank.

Courtsey:IE

Orissa assembly was adjourned sine die on Friday ending the 10-day brief monsoon session with the passage of the much-debated Orissa Co-operative Societies  (Amendment) Bill, 2011.

With passage of the Orissa Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, the tenure of cooperative bodies comprising primary, central and apex society would be five years instead of four years.

The Bill has provision for uniform and proper representation of schedule Caste, Schedule Tribe, Other Backward Class (including socially and educationally backward classes) and women to the committee of the societies proportionate to their numbers in the society.

The last day of the session also witnessed uproarious scenes with opposition Congress and BJP members raising anti-government slogans demanding discussion of the alleged

horse-trading during last year’s Rajya Sabha polls and law and order situation.

While BJP members launched a sit-in dharna in well of the House, the Congress members were on their legs demanding debate over these issues.

The government’s effort to issue soil health cards to every farmer in the country by 2013 is progressing well in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat but major eastern states of Bihar and West Bengal have been lagging behind so far.

According to government’s data, 41.3 crore farmers have been provided soil health cards in the country till 2010-11.

Uttar Pradesh, which has issued soil health cards to 8.7 crore farmers till 2010-11, tops the list, the data presented by Minister of State for Agriculture Harish Rawat in

Parliament last week said.

Karnataka is second with 5.7 crore cards, followed by Andhra Pradesh (3.8 crore cards) and Gujarat (3.2 crore), the figures said.

Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Punjab and Orissa have also shown good performance.

But, eastern states of Bihar and West Bengal whose economy is driven by agriculture are among the laggards.

In Bihar only 6.3 lakh farmers have been issued soil health cards till 2010-11, while it is a little over 3 lakh in West Bengal, according to the data.

Jharkhand also does not have encouraging results as only 1.6 lakh farmers have received soil health cards there during the period.

The soil health card evaluates the health or quality of a soil as a function of its characteristics, water, plant and other biological properties. The card is a tool to help the

farmer to monitor and improve soil health based on their own field experience and working knowledge of their soils.

When state cooperative banks are mostly falling below their expectations especially in Maharashtra, the state-owned Orissa State Cooperative Bank Limited has disbursed around Rs 1068 crore crop loan to 5.52 lakh farmers in the state during the current kharif agriculture season thus raising faith in the system.

The Bank has achieved 46 per cent of this year’s target of Rs 2300-crore fixed for the kharif agriculture season which started from April 1.The bank had disbursed crop loan of Rs 966.62-crore to 5.89 lakh farmers in the state in the corresponding period of last year, sources said.

In Kharif-2010, Rs 1811.09-crore crop loan was given to 11.25 lakh farmers in the state in the cooperative sector. Similarly, crop loan advances during Kharif 2009 and 2008 were Rs 1407.81 crore and Rs 546.40-crore respectively.

In the last Rabi season, Rs 1558.02 crore was provided to 8.91 lakh farmers. The achievement in Rabi-2010-11 was around 111 percent.