After bumper crop, Punjab set to procure 20 LMT excess paddy

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 5

The paddy procurement in the ongoing Kharif Marketing Season is set to be much higher than the earlier estimates. As per advance estimates of the Agriculture Department, the yield is good and the state is set to procure almost 20 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) more than the original estimates of 170 LMT.

Massive crackdown on smugglers

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• Food and Supplies Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu says he got the stocks in all rice mills physically verified before procurement began
• “I ensured that cops were stationed at every entry and exit point in the state to check smuggling from outside the state,” he says
• He says an ADGP-level officer has been put on duty just to ensure that smuggling is stopped

This may lead to some tussle between the state and the BJP-led Centre. For, the latter has accused Punjab of procuring excess grain than what it produces, and passing it on to the Centre to avail MSP. It is thus that the Centre has pushed aside Punjab’s claim of procuring 190 LMT paddy and said the procurement from the state would be only 170 LMT.

“Not that the practice is not prevalent (of buying cheaper rice from outside state and passing it to FCI on MSP), but the state has launched a massive crackdown on such unscrupulous people who have been indulging in these malpractices. It is for the first time to stop the continuous maligning of Punjab and its farmers that I got the physical verification done for stocks lying in each rice mill in the state before the procurement season began. We now have the list of exact stocks in the mills, which will be matched with the results of physical verification to be conducted at the end of the procurement season,” Punjab Food and Supplies Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu said.

He said this time, he had ensured that a posse of cops was stationed at every entry and exit point in Punjab, to check that there was no smuggling of paddy from outside the state, and no rice (usually meant for PDS) from other states was smuggled into Punjab by the rice millers.

“An ADGP-level officer has been put on duty just to ensure that this smuggling is stopped,” he said, adding that they had also set up flying squads to check any malpractices at the market committee level, besides intelligence gathering from truckers and using Guardians of Governance for the purpose.

Ashu, while talking of excess paddy being procured last year (203 LMT — 25 per cent higher than the paddy procurement in 2019, which led to the accusations of bogus billing), said it was because farmers from Haryana started selling paddy in Punjab mandis.