Respite for kinnow growers: Punjab Agro to buy 7000 MT for mid-day meals and their gin

This comes after repeated protests by the kinnow growers of Fazilka, who had said that Punjab Agro was buying crops from select farmers and not their produce.

PAGREXCO has also decided to start daily purchase of 125-150 metric tonne (MT) of B&C grade and even small size kinnow from the farmers as well as from the mandi for manufacturing of PAGREXCO’s popular gin, OreGin, which has got a good response in Goa.

An official from PAGREXCO said that till March end, about 2,000 MT kinnow will be purchased for midday meals and another 5,000 MT kinnow will be needed for the alcoholic beverage. While for midday meal, kinnow purchase has already started, for the Gin, it will start in a day or two.

Both the efforts will be a shot in the arm for farmers who are facing plummeting prices due to kinnow glut this season.

A meeting between farmer union leaders, PAGREXCO general manager and deputy commissioner Fazilka Senu Kapila Duggal had taken place on Wednesday to finalise the modalities. Duggal said, “This will solve the problem of kinnow glut being faced by the farmers. Apart for the midday meal, even farmers have got the opportunity to sell their produce for Gin manufacturing as well. This was made possible after repeated meetings with PAGREXCO and farmers. Rs 15 a kg has been finalised for farmers , however, they have to give 55% of the total kinnow as A grade while 45% as B and C grade and if B and C grade is more then 45% prices will reduce by 30%.”

According to the minutes of the meeting, if B and C grades of fruit are more than 70%, the prices will be Rs 7 a kg for the whole lot. There are A, B, C and D grades of kinnows based on the quality of the fruit. The farmers themselves have to send the button cut fruit to their nearest pack houses.

Duggal added that though it is not the job of PAGREXCO to supply the fruit to schools, but still they have decided to help out the farmers. “Mapping of all Punjab government schools has been done and we have got contacts of the district education officers of all the districts. It was also decided to stagger the day of fruit distribution as it has to be done once a week and so there is not any hard and fast rule of distributing it only on Monday. This way, the distribution agency will be able to do deliver it across the state in phases,” she said.

While the fruit will be distributed on Monday in the government schools of Amritsar, Barnala, Faridkot, Ferozepur, Tarn Taran and Kapurthala, on Tuesday, schools in Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Fatehgarh Sahib, Mohali and Pathankot will get kinnows. On Wednesday, it will be distributed in Bathinda, Gurdaspur, Malerkotla, Moga, Patiala and Sangrur and on Thursday in Hoshiarpur, Fazilka, Muktsar, Ropar, Mohali and Mansa.

PAGREXCO officials said that this season they have directly purchased 5,000 MT from the farmers till mid-February and by the end of March, the total facilitation by them will be 15000 MT from all sources).

Darshan Singh, general secretary of BKU Rajewal in Fazilka, said, “We welcome the decision of the Punjab government and appreciate the efforts of Fazilka DC. We expect PAGREXCO to do smooth procurement of the fruit from the farmers. We had done many protests to raise our voice and finally we are happy that our demand has been heard.”