Farmers Movement Archive

Procurement begins, but no arrival on Day 1

Tribune News ServiceAmritsar, April 15Even as the administration has made arrangements for the procurement of wheat under the Public Distribution System (PDS) at grain markets in the district, no produce arrived from the fields here today. Experts said the crop was not fully ripened and it would take some more days before the harvesting picked up pace.Expect Speedy arrival after April 20: OfficialTarn Taran: With not even a single trolley of wheat arriving in grain markets of the district on Wednesday, Ajaypal Randhawa, District Mandi Officer, said the arrival was expected to pick up pace only after April 20.However, Tejinderpal Singh, a kisan leader, blamed the present situation to “faulty policies” of the state government and the non-availability of combine harvesters. He alleged that several combine harvesters from the state had been sent to MP, Rajasthan, Gujarat, where the crop ripe in advance. — OCA visit to Bhagtanwala Dana Mandi, the district’s largest grain market, revealed that not even a single farmer brought his produce today. Mandi board workers were, however, seen marking areas of the ground to ensure social distancing during unloading and weighing of the crop.Narinder Behal, a leader of the arhtiya association, said, “We expect that the produce will start arriving within the next few days. Due to the availability of large number of combine harvester machines in the state, the harvesting will take hardly 10 days.”Behal demanded that a farmer should be allowed to bring all his produce in one-go instead of issuing him a pass for one trolley. “Usually all fields of a farmer are harvested together. If he is to bring one trolley only, where would he store his produce from the remaining fields. It would require him to come to the market again and again,” said Behal, adding that the system should be made farmer-friendly.Farmers also complained that if the present system of token for one trolley was followed, they would have to keep the remaining produce at home and load it into trolleys again when they received a pass from the mandi board. “We are already short of labour hands and this unnecessary work load would burden us financially as well as physically,” said Gurnam Singh, a farmer.The arhtiyas, too, demanded that the produce coming from the fields should be directly weighed on ‘dharam kanda’ along with the trolley. “After the produce is unloaded, the empty trolley could be weighed to know the actual weight of grains. Then by taking a sample of one quintal, it should be cleaned with the power cleaner to know about the extent of other waste. The same cut can be applied to the entire produce and the farmer would get free within half an hour,” said another arhtiya, Joginder Singh. He said workers could later clean the entire lot and pack it in gunny bags.

The Tribune

2020-04-16