Jalandhar, October 11
Darbara Singh Guru, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, visited different mandis located in Jalandhar and its neighbouring Kapurthala districts today to ensure smooth procurement and lifting of paddy.
His visit to the new grain market in Jalandhar may be termed as an eyewash as he remained there for not more than 10 minutes and did not make round of the entire market and talked to only a few farmers. Actually, he devoted over half of his time during his stay at the market talking to journalists.
Guru talked to a farmer, Barjinder Singh of Kot Sadiq village, whose paddy was piled near the office of the market committee at around 1 pm. The Principal Secretary asked him when he had brought the paddy to the market. The farmer replied that he had brought the paddy at 7 am today. At this Guru directed Pungrain to procure his paddy immediately.
Subsequently, he started talking to journalists. After that he along with Jalandhar Division Commissioner S.R. Ladhar and DC Priyank Bharti walked a few yards and ended his visit to the new grain market.
While Guru claimed that there was no difficulty in paddy procurement and its lifting, the president of the Arthiya Association of the new grain market, Kashmir Lal, said lifting had not been done at the pace it should have been as the rice shellers and the government could not reach at any agreement in this regard.
Meanwhile to a query regarding providing Rs 200 more per quintal to farmers of a particular region, Guru said the excess money was being paid against the paddy of 201 variety, irrespective of any region.
Guru said arrangements had been made to pay farmers their money within 48 hours of procurement of their paddy.
In the meantime, an official spokesman said Guru would visit mandis located in Amritsar and Tarn Taran districts on October 12, Ferozepur and Faridkot districts on 13 and those situated in Bathinda and Muktsar on October 14.
Phagwara: As Punjab has been divided in six sectors to monitor the arrangements of paddy procurement, Darbara Singh Guru, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, today visited the Phagwara Grain Market, inspected paddy procurement arrangements and met farmers.
Surprisingly Guru made a phone call to Punjab Mandi Board Secretary Dr Karamjit Singh Sara asking him to follow the working and procedure adopted in the Phagwara mandi which he described as role model in the state.
Later talking to newsmen in the presence of Jalandhar Division Commissioner S.R. Ladhar, Kapurthala Deputy Commissioner Raj Kamal Chaudhary and other officials, Guru said Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had instructed the entire official machinery to give top priority to solve any problem being faced by farmers at any place in the state.
Guru said he would visit the districts of Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Muktsar, Tarn Taran, Ferozepore, Faridkot, Bathinda and Mansa from today to October 15 to check and monitor the paddy procurements, while the other districts would be visited by other senior officials.
The Principal Secretary said the state government would soon set up storage facility of 70 lakh tonnes of paddy and tenders had been floated for the purpose.
He reiterated his commitments that payments would be made to farmers within 48 hours of the paddy purchase. He said the government had arranged Rs 13,500 crore from banks to provide timely payments to the farmers and Rs 1,110 crore had been paid till yesterday.
He said 23.75 lakh tonnes of paddy had arrived in the mandis of the state till yesterday and 21.80 lakh tonnes had been purchased by different agencies.
Later he proceeded to check the mandis at Noormahal, Nakodar, Lohian, Kapurthala, Sultanpur Lodhi, Talwandi and Fattu Dinga.
NAWANSHAHR: Home Secretary B.S. Sudan, accompanied by Deputy Commissioner Shruti Singh, visited different mandis in the district to take stock of the ongoing procurement of paddy. He interacted with officials of the procurement agencies, farmers and arhtiyas. He asked the district managers of the procurement agencies to expedite lifting of the purchased paddy from the mandis. As many as 38,973 metric tonnes of paddy had arrived in the mandis in the district, of which 36,973 tonnes had been purchased up to October 10, he added.
