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 anytime and buy only that quantity which they needed for immediate use. Their inventory cost was reduced to zero! Moreover, the mill owners would buy their requirement of cotton by paying much less than what the private trader would have demanded. Thus at each stage of its working the Monopoly Scheme was making losses and such a Scheme could not possibly be of any benefit to the farmers. However, despite losing crores of rupees every year the Government still insisted on running this Scheme. The only beneficiaries were political leaders, employees of the Scheme and mill owners. Over the years, as the losses kept mounting, the Monopoly Scheme had to be abolished. Like in other States, the Cotton Federation of India started handling cotton trade. Even that Federation worked like a monopoly and only after the liberalization of 1991, its monopoly started reducing and the scope for private traders began to increase. But during the years when SS’s cotton struggle took place, this Scheme was very much in operation. Monopoly Scheme was in force for almost forty years during which time the farmers of Vidarbha suffered grievous losses. With each year the losses kept growing. Joshi always used to say that the insistence of the State Government on running this harmful Scheme was the major reason for the indebtedness of the cotton farmers. But nobody took any responsibility for having enforced this wrong Scheme for four decades nor did anyone dared to discuss the colossal harm done by it. The first activity organized by SS in Vidarbha was the Kapas Kisan Sammelan (Cotton Farmers Gathering) on 18 October 1984 at Hinganghat. That provided a platform for detail discussion of the problems faced by the cotton growers. Losses farmers were incurring every year due to Monopoly Procurement Scheme, Zone-bandi (the ban on selling in other 158

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Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage