Poor infra irks farmers at Gill Mandi

Gurvinder Singh

tribune news service

Ludhiana, May 15

As weather has showed its stormy side a few times this month, the food grain market at Gill has been exposed due to insufficient facility to protect farmers’ produce.

Even the sheds at the grain market are inadequate. Even though the lifting of grains is almost completed, even now, the sheds could not accommodate the grains there. Visitors said there was a need for bigger sheds at the grain market. “Even now, when the lifting of the grains has been completed, the bare minimum food grains cannot be accommodated under sheds. In fact, food grain has to be kept outside,” said Gurdev Singh, a farmer. “There is a need for development of the grain markets into state of the art,” he pointed out.

The shed covers only a small portion of the grain market, leaving the grains out in the open. “When it rains, we have to cover food grains immediately with rubber sheets. But it is not possible to cover all when it rains all of a sudden. Not only this, sometimes, stagnated water also spoils the produce,” Narinder, one of the labourers working there said.

Even visitors including farmers coming to the grain market were irked due to the absence of seating arrangement. “Even simple benches for seating have not been set up for people. There should be benches to sit for the people like us (farmers) who come from far-off villages,” said Jagtar Singh, a farmer at the market.

Adding to the inconvenience, the absence of a toilet there made conditions worse. The farmers have to attend nature’s call at vacant plots. “The government should ensure at least washrooms at the mandis,” Galli Rishi, a labourer working at the mandi said.

Residents who were visiting the market to purchase the grains said there should be proper system to ensure that the grains are not just kept on the ground, but should be kept in hygienic conditions, through some kind of storage.