Punjab postpones wheat procurement, ops to begin April 15

He added, “Though we always start our procurement from April 1, only a few farmers come with their crop to mandis. The harvesting picks up after Baisakhi on April 13. We just post our staff in Mandis so that those coming to the market has somebody to attend to. But this time, if we allow farmers, labourers and everybody to flock to the mandis, the purpose of lockdown will be defeated. Hence, it is better to play safe,” said Ashu.

The state is expecting a yield of 130 lakh metric tonnes of wheat this year. The massive procurment operations would be undertaken at over 1800 mandis across the state.

The government is not ready to take take any chance and is preparing to a mandi-wise plan. “We will cover one commission agent daily. On an average, an agent covers 15-20 farmers each. Each farmer would be given a date to come to Mandi so that there is no over-crowding,” said a functionary of the government.

He said the government will also ask the staff of agriculture department to sensitise the farmers to postpone their harvesting operations so that they do not have to wait for procurement by keeping the produce at home. This may cause unrest among farmers who want their produce to be procured the first day. Procurement is a huge political issue in the state. Any delay causes unrest among farmers and the government of the day has to make arrangements to ensure its quick lifting.

This time Punjab is also facing a problem of plenty as all its godowns are filled to the brim. With the efforts to contain the novel coronavirus being put in place, the government is also hurrying to clear its godowns by sending the wheat to recipient states. The curfew directions have been exempted on those operations.