Amid farm stir, Centre says will procure every grain, have enough storage space

The Centre on Sunday stepped in to defuse ongoing tensions around paddy procurement challenges in Punjab. It assured farmers of procurement of “every single grain” and cautioned them against “misinformation about lack of space to store paddy”.

High-level panel to monitor movement

• High-level panel set up under the FCI CMD to monitor movement of foodgrain (13-15 LMT/month) out of Punjab
• New app created where rice millers can post grievances, which will be resolved within three working days

Centre’s plan for Punjab

• Total paddy to be procured from Punjab is 185 lakh metric tonnes (LMT); will yield 124 LMT rice (which millers will provide)
• Average rice procurement from Punjab till March in last five years has been 84 LMT
• Space available with the FCI as of Sunday is 14 LMT; it will rise to 16 LMT by November 1
• Average rice procurement from Punjab (in the last 5 years) till December has been 15.5 LMT
• There’s a plan to move 13-15 LMT grains from Punjab per month
• The Centre has approved 31 LMT storage space for Punjab under the private entrepreneurship guarantee scheme
• The storage space will be ready by June by when entire 124 LMT rice will be procured

Will talk to him: Joshi on Capt’s BJP remark

• Food Minister Pralhad Joshi on Sunday said he would speak to Capt Amarinder about Punjab’s farm issues
• “I don’t know what he has said. I will talk to him,” Joshi said when asked by The Tribune for comments on the former Punjab CM’s remarks that the “BJP does not seek his advice”
• Singh had in an exclusive interview to The Tribune said his advice on farmers’ issues was not being sought by the BJP

“There is no crisis at all. Please try and understand. We have already shared the plan for creation of storage space with the Punjab Government. Movement of foodgrain outside the state is also underway. There is no problem on the ground. Either wrong information or misinformation is being spread on the ground,” said Food Minister Pralhad Joshi on Sunday. He was responding to a query by The Tribune on why the crisis came about in the first place when standard protocols on paddy procurement and foodgrain movement were in place.

Joshi said as on date, the FCI had 14 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of storage space available and this would rise to 16 LMT by November 1.

Explaining there was no crisis, Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra told The Tribune that over the last five years, average paddy procurement until December had been 15.5 LMT. “We will already have 16 LMT space by November 1 and would have created more by moving out more foodgrain by December. So there is no crisis,” he said.

The Centre has also formed a high-level committee under Food Corporation of India (FCI) CMD Vineeta Sharma to monitor the movement of foodgrain outside Punjab for the kharif marketing season. To further resolve grievances of Punjab’s millers, the FCI has also created an application on which their grievances will be resolved within three working days.

The app is yet to be launched but has been hosted on the FCI website. Joshi said he had also spoken to Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and asked him to speed up the procurement process through state agencies and cooperate with the Centre for foodgrain lifting. Asked why the procurement was delayed, Joshi said, “Due to heavy rains this year, the Punjab Government had specifically requested us to start procurement from October 1, which we did.”

The minister said creation of space was the responsibility of the Food Ministry and the FCI, and would be taken care of. “We strongly stand by the farmers of Punjab and will fulfil our commitment to procure 185 LMT paddy. Not a single grain will be left behind. Everything will be procured by the FCI at the MSP of Rs 2,300 per quintal, which was around Rs 1,310 in 2013-14,” Joshi said.

The minister said as on date, 54.36 LMT of paddy had arrived in the mandis of Punjab as against 65 LMT on this date last year. “So we are lagging behind last year by only 10 LMT. The total procurement as on date is 49.88 LMT. Already 3,800 rice millers have registered with the FCI to lift paddy and 3,250 have been allotted it. We expect 4,500 rice millers to register,” he said.

There are around 5,500 rice millers in Punjab and they have been reluctant to lift paddy fearing lower out-turn ratio (paddy to rice ratio) than the normal 67 per cent due to use of some hybrid varieties of rice this year.

The Centre gives arhtiyas commissions on 67 per cent out-turn ratio (OTR). On this issue, the minister said the PR-126 paddy variety had been in existence in Punjab since 2016 but there were reports this year that some hybrids were sold in the name of PR-126 which is why an Kharagpur IIT team is already in Punjab to study the varieties and recommend a review of the OTR as Mann had suggested.

“Should such a review happen it will be pan-India,” said Joshi, adding that Rs 9,820-crore payment had been made to the procurement agencies concerned in Punjab and they had already released Rs 7,640 crore to farmers.

No cause for worry: Food Secy

Asked about the plan on the basis of which the government was sure of procuring and storing paddy smoothly, Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said the commitment was to procure 185 LMT paddy or about 124 LMT rice.

“If we take the average procurement of rice we have done in the past five years, it is 84 LMT. By December on an average, we have procured 15.5 LMT over the past five years. So even if we take that average we already have 14 LMT space available today and will have 16 LMT by November 1, more capacity than we need. Some vested interests are peddling rumours on the issue. Even in the pre-Covid season of 2019, we had only space for 13 LMT rice in Punjab. Today we have more,” said Chopra.

He also explained that the Centre has plans to move out 13 to 15 LMT paddy from Punjab every month. “Even if you take the lower figure of 13 LMT per month for lifting paddy, we would have moved 67 LMT out of Punjab by March. The state government has offered us 40 LMT space which we will take without tendering. So there is no issue of space,” Chopra said.