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Rain paralyses wheat procurement in Punjab

Punjab targets to procure about 110 lakh metric tonnes (MT) this season, but officials feel that inclement weather might disrupt the exercise.

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Intermittent rains and hailstorm in the region has paralysed wheat harvesting,  procurement and threatened to damage the stocks purchased.

Punjab targets to procure about 110 lakh metric tonnes (MT) this season, but officials feel that inclement weather might disrupt the exercise.

Rains and hailstorm lashed about half a dozen districts in the Malwa region on Sunday and Monday destroying standing crops on thousands of acres, said a senior official of the agriculture department.

The state government has ordered girdawari (it is the record of land cultivation. It records crop and its ownership) in many parts even as emergency measures were being taken to save the procured stocks from being damaged by rains.

About 45 of the stocks had been lying exposed, making it unfit for human consumption. The state already has around 150 lakh MT of foodgrain stocks stacked at various places, leaving no space for fresh arrivals of wheat.

Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal told prime minister Manmohan Singh last week that the state was facing an acute shortage of space for the storage of foodgrains.

As per a survey conducted by the FCI, Punjab was falling short for storing almost 71 lakh MT. Badal said in view of this alarming shortage the state procurement agencies were compelled to store wheat in the open.

At present more than 90% of wheat storage in Punjab was in the open, making it unfit for human consumption.

The shortage of covered space was adversely affecting the rice acceptance in the central pool.

While the FCI has squarely blamed the state agencies for their “gross negligence in preserving and protecting  the wheat stocks”, the  state officials say it was “because of poor speed of the FCI to move wheat stocks out of the state that has been jeopardising the state’s efforts”.

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