Morinda, April 16
While light to moderate rain in the past 24 hours in this region has impeded the wheat harvesting and procurement operations, farmers and commission agents have complained about the poor upkeep of grain markets at various places.

Reports of hail storms have also come from some parts of the state. As a Tribune team visited various grain markets in the state, farmers said that hail storms had caused damage to wheat crop in Samrala, Kharar and the Bathinda belt. However, the damage was confined to certain pockets and not widespread.

Mr Pritpal Singh of Roran village near Kharar said that most of the farmers in his village had put off the harvesting operations for four days or so. Farmers were praying for a clear sky. They were worried as prolonging of the cloudy weather or rainfall could prove harmful to their ripened crop, he said.

Mr Sukhdev Singh, who brought wheat to the grain market at Pir Jain near Fatehgarh Sahib this morning, said that because of high moisture content and cloudy weather, farmers were facing difficulty in threshing the wheat crop. Even combine harvesters could not be made operational in the fields because of wet soil. The harvesting operations would pick up with the substantial rise in temperature and blowing of hot winds across the countryside, he said.

At places like Kharar, some of the piles of wheat stacked in the grain market yard were affected because of rain early this morning. Farmers were seen removing water from such stocks and taking the help of labour for drying up the wheat. Even, officials of the procurement agencies hesitated to accept such stocks.

In Morinda grain market, Mr Mandeep Singh, a farmer from Rauni Khurad village, expressed anger at the poor arrangements in the grain market made by the Punjab Mandi Board. Though he had covered the pile of wheat from all sides with polythene sheets and tarpaulins but rain water flowed in the wheat as the floor of the yard was not levelled at certain places.

Commission agents in Kharar said that the sheds over a part of the grain market were leaking at various places. Though the market committee authorities at Kharar had enough money at their disposal for getting such sheds repaired but nothing had been done in this connection, they added. They showed the wheat stocks which had got wet because of leakage of rain water from the roof of the sheds in the Kharar grain yard.

The roads leading to the grain yard and within the grain market complex at Kharar were in poor shape. In fact, certain parts of these roads were not motorable because of uneven surface and large pits. Slush had accumulated on the roads within the grain market complex because of rain.

Sewer and rain water could also be seen accumulated at Khamano grain market. Foul smell emanating from the sewer water at the entrance of one of the grain market yard at Khamano was creating problems for those coming to market their produce.