Chandigarh, October 22, 2024 (Yes Punjab News)
Punjab Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian, on Tuesday, trained guns at Central Government for deliberately delaying the shifting of previously stored crops from the state godowns, which resulted in space crunch and affected the pace ongoing paddy procurement operations. The slow lifting of paddy crop sparked string of the protests by farmers and rice millers across the state.
The Agricultural Minister informed that Punjab Government has procured over 28 LMT paddy of total 31 LMT arrived in the Grain Markets across the state so far.
On slow lifting of the procured paddy, Gurmeet Singh Khudian said that Punjab state has always faced challenges due to step motherly treatment being meted out by the Central Government. He said that despite Punjab Government has been ensuring prompt purchase of paddy crop, the delay in lifting of crops purchased in previous seasons from godowns by the centre leading to storage shortage, hence, delay in lifting.
He said that the state government has made number of requests to the Union Government to shift the crops lying in the state godowns, to accommodate storage of current paddy crop but go in vain.
“Even Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann’s personal requests to the centre government fallen on deaf ears,” said the Agriculture Minister, while soliciting support of farmers and rice millers to overcome this problem together.
The Agriculture Minister said that the Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann led Punjab Government is committed to procure every single grain of paddy from the grain markets.
