LOCALS FACE PROBLEMS AS MANY FARMERS CONVERTED ROADS AS THEIR HARVESTING GROUND

Akshya Rout;Odishabarta

JAJPUR: Hundreds of farmers have been harvesting  paddy crops on the roads through out the Jajpur  district     as a result many commuters face lot of problems.

Large numbers of   farmers have illegally occupied major portion of the  village roads, state and national highways , bridges  by heaping  their  paddy crops.   They  have no right to illegally encroach the roads   during harvesting season”, said   Chitaranjan Sahoo  a bus driver.

 Large numbers of farmers illegally converted roads as their harvesting place  due to non- availability of fields to heap their paddy crops.   , said  Umesh Chandra Singh a farmers’ leader.

 “ We used to harvest and winnow our paddy crops on the grazing ground or vacant land  in our villages.  But many   persons  constructed schools , colleges and other institutions over the grazing and harvesting lands . Now we have no permanent space to  heap  harvested paddy crops for which we are using roads  to heap paddy crops , said a farmer  Bijay Das of  Sujanapur  who heaped his paddy crops for the purpose of winnowing on a bridge.

When contacted Ranjan Kumar Das the collector of Jajpur said, ‘ It is illegal on the part of the farmers to encroach the roads  for  winnowing  their paddy crops. We will take actions against the persons who are blocking the roads “.