Parmal harvesting nearly over, no fresh arrival in Amritsar district mandis

Manmeet Singh Gill

Advertisement

Amritsar, November 21

The harvesting of parmal varieties of paddy is nearly over as the grain markets in the district received no fresh arrival of the produce from the grain markets on Tuesday. The district has reported an arrival of merely 200 metric tonnes of parmal on the last day.

District agriculture officials stated that harvesting of parmal varieties is almost over. They stated that the produce which is coming to the markets presently is just because the farmers could not transport the same to mandis earlier.

The district has reported a total arrival of 2.71 lakh metric tonnes of parmal till date. Out of it 2.66 lakh metric tonne has been purchased by the government procurement agencies while merely 3526 metric tonnes have been purchased by private buyers.

Additionally the district mandi board has reported a total arrival of 5.43 lakh MT of basmati crop. The officials stated that the harvesting of late sown basmati varieties have just started and the grain markets received a total of 6579 MT of basmati even on Tuesday. The basmati, as it is not covered under the MSP (minimum support price), is solely purchased by the private traders.

The mandi board officials stated that while 2.46 lakh MT of parmal has been lifted from the markets, only 9 per cent of the procured crop is awaiting lifting. The district administration had earlier closed most of the dana mandis with exception of only five to facilitate farmers to sell their remaining parmal crop.

The officials stated that if no fresh parmal produce arrived from the fields during the next few more days, the procurement process would be officially closed.