Punjab gears up for wheat procurement

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 7

The state government today set up a 30-member control room at the mandi board for coordination and providing logistic support during the wheat harvesting and marketing season, set to begin on April 15 amid unprecedented security and safety measures to ensure smooth operations in view of the Covid-19 clampdown.

Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Tuesday reviewed arrangements for the rabi operations via videoconferencing with the officials concerned.

Capt Amarinder also wrote to his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee, seeking her intervention to revive manufacturing at the jute mills in her state against the pending indents for gunny bales placed by Punjab.

The CM said indents had been placed for 3.4 lakh jute bales from December 2019 to March 2020, and approximately Rs1,000 crore had been transferred in advance in the escrow account of the Jute Commissioner of India, Kolkata. As per the information, of 3.4 lakh bales, 2.46 lakh had been cleared in inspection, and 2.30 lakh bales had been dispatched to date. Another 10,000 bales were ready with the mills for inspections, but the nationwide lockdown disrupted the entire supply chain, he observed.

He ordered the food and agriculture departments to come out with standard operating procedures for mandis and purchase centres. He directed the departments to scale up the number of purchase centres to 4,000 from 3,761.

No shortage of labour

The CM was informed that there was no shortage of labour, with 14.2 lakh workers available to join the operations. Further, retired employees of the mandi board and state procurement agencies were being recalled for smooth operations.

Health Secretary Anurag Aggarwal said guidelines were being prepared to ensure that the mandis were protected from Covid-19. Farmers and labourers will be checked for influenza-like symptoms, masks would be made compulsory and multiple hand-washing arrangements shall be set up in each mandi.