Paddy piles up as procurement comes to a crawl

Harbans Singh,a farmer from Kler Bajra village,has been camping in the mandi for the last four days. He complains,“There is no proper place to stay,water to drink or food to eat. But I have to stay put. No one has come to purchase my crop for the last four days. On top of all this,it is raining and my produce will spoil.”

The total arrival of paddy in Punjab mandis this year is 5.93 lakh tonnes till now,while this figure last year was 19.96 lakh tonnes — this means a shortfall of 70 per cent. Out of the total arrival,Government agencies have purchased 2.32 lakh tonnes and 1.47 lakh tonnes has been picked up by private traders.

Reports from major mandis of the state like Jagraon,Ferozepur and Amritsar said procurement remained slow with Government officials not ready to buy paddy with high moisture content. Mukan Singh,SDM,Jagraon,said,“Farmers bring wet paddy to the mandis and then complain that it has not been purchased. We have put up posters in the villages telling farmers not to bring wet paddy for purchase and have even constituted a team of officials outside the mandi to check the kind of crop that is coming in. If after all this,bad produce gets purchased,we will take action against both the arhtiya and the farmer.”