Only 20% of 34 LMT wheat lifted in Punjab, high moisture to blame

Tribune News Service

Ruchika M Khanna

Chandigarh, April 22

The mandis in Punjab are choked with grain as only 20 per cent of the wheat has been lifted.

Reports say that because of labour pangs in some places and delay in its transportation to stores in different parts of the state, there is glut-like situation in mandis. With more than 10 lakh tonnes of wheat expected to arrive daily from later this week, the situation in mandis could get worse.

Expect 1LMT daily

The lifting is slow and the impact will be visible in two days, when there will be no space to keep the grain in mandis as we expect daily arrivals of 1LMT in Khanna alone — Market committee official

What figures say

• Monday arrival 9.26 LMT
• Arrival so far 34.14 LMT
• Monday purchase 8.97 LMT
• Purchase so far 29.72 LMT
• Unsold 4.42 LMT
• Lifted 6 LMT
• Unlifted 23.72 LMT

Against 34.14 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of wheat that has arrived in the mandis, only 20 per cent (6LMT) has been lifted. The total wheat purchased by government agencies is 27.76 LMT and private traders have purchased 1.96LMT grains. As much as 4.42LMT of wheat is lying unsold in the mandis.

An official of the Market Committee, Khanna, said of the 32,576 MT of wheat, only 12,875MT has been lifted. “The lifting is slow and the impact will be visible in two days when there will be no space to keep the grain in mandis,” he added.

Officials in the Food and Supply Department say that the reason for the slow lifting is the high moisture content in the grain because of rain two days back. “Once the grain dry, these will be lifted. The problem with labour contractors has been resolved. As compared to arrivals last year, the lifting is much faster this year. But to ease things, we have doubled the targets for daily lifting,” said a top officer in the department.

In mandis of Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur and Muktsar, the percentage of the grain lifted is less than 10 per cent. Data available with The Tribune shows that the tardiest lifting of the grain has been in Tarn Taran, where only 2 per cent of the grain have been lifted. The highest percentage of lifting has been in Ropar (53 per cent) and Mohali (34 per cent). In other districts, less than 30 per cent have been lifted.

Though the lifting remains tardy, commission agents say that this time the quality of the grain is good. Harbans Singh Rosha, a commission agent in Khanna, said the grain coming in meet all quality specifications, and are not discoloured. “This time, the payment process is smooth and farmers are getting payment within 24 hours of their grain being bought,” he said.

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