Smooth paddy purchase on mind, Punjab Govt back to offline passes

Ruchika M Khanna

Chandigarh, October 6

As paddy arrivals started picking pace today, choking the mandis in many districts, the government initiated steps to expedite the lifting of foodgrains from the mandis.

The government issued orders for allowing the use of tractors and trailers for lifting the paddy from the mandis and transferring it to rice-shelling units. The government also decided to revert to the system of issuing offline passes immediately to expedite lifting.

On-spot payment for farmers: CM

• CM Bhagwant Mann reiterated the govt’s commitment to procure every single grain of farmers
• At a meeting with farmers in Chandigarh on Thursday, the CM said a mechanism had been evolved to ensure on-the-spot payment to them in their bank accounts

Highest yield likely in Hoshiarpur

• Hoshiarpur appears to be on the top for having the highest yield of paddy, with the expected maximum yield now estimated at 46.56 quintal per acre
• Other than Hoshiarpur, the crop yield in Ludhiana and Muktsar is also higher at 41.76 and 40.64 quintal per acre, respectively

Paddy arrivals pick up pace

Total arrivals so far: 3.67 LMT

Thursday’s arrivals: 1.13 LMT

Progressive procurement: 3.28 LMT (Govt: 3.19 LMT, miller: 8,610 MT)

Thursday’s procurement: 1.04 LMT (Govt: 1.02 LMT, miller: 1,595 MT)

Today, 1,13,976 metric tonnes of paddy arrived in mandis. As the season peaks, the daily arrivals can go up to several lakhs of quintals. As many mandis started getting “flooded” today, civil administration officials in various districts of the Malwa region as well as ruling party MLAs reported to the Chief Minister that the lifting process was slow because of the new system of issuing online passes by arhtiyas.

Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann ordered that in all mandis having a capacity to accommodate over 10,000 MT of paddy, the gate passes required to ferry grains to the storage facilities could be issued offline, as was the practice in the past.

However, the passes would still have to be updated online after the grains were lifted and transported out of the mandis. The system of issuing online gate passes was introduced this year to keep track of the quantity of foodgrains and to prevent cheap grains from other states being diverted to Punjab mandis, to be sold at a higher MSP here.