Page:Sharad Joshi - Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage.pdf/320

 “Shivar Agro” was another project. It entailed forming a chain of around 5,000 centers for retail sale where fruits, vegetables, grains and other produce would be delivered to consumers directly. Joshi had seen such retail chains in Switzerland and Shivar was along those lines. It was also naturally linked to “Chaturang Sheti” which envisaged farmers processing produce domestically. Shivar Agro was a registered Company with its office in Nagpur. One share was of Rs. 10 and each applicant was expected to buy minimum 100 shares costing Rs.1,000. For initial booking the payment of just Rs.100 was expected. The booking had in fact started during the fifth Convention of Sanghatana at Aurangabad in October 1993. The balance amount was payable by 31 of December that year. The proposed share capital was Rs. 3 crores. However, in reality only Rs. 30 lakhs could be raised. Because of inadequate capital and perhaps also due to some other reasons the project was unsuccessful. The third professional project envisaged by Joshi was called “Bhama Construction Company”. Bhama was to be the first industrial township that would be developed and managed by farmers. Government of Maharashtra through its company called Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) used to acquire large plots of land. It would develop that land, provide basic infrastructure like roads, electricity and water, divide it into several plots, and then sell/lease them. In the process of land acquisition, mostly fertile agricultural land, farmers suffered from injustice because the government would acquire the land at the rate it had fixed and it was obligatory for the farmer to surrender his ownership to MIDC. Often MIDC sold/leased the developed plots at a rate far higher than the rate at which the land was acquired. Joshi discovered, for instance, what had happened in a village called Chikhali in Pune district. In MIDC area called Bhosari it had paid compensation to the farmers at the rate of Rs. 19,000 per acre in 1989 but sold/leased Search for New Ways

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