Procurement blues acquire alarming proportions: Bittu says 212 freight trains moving out paddy, asks where is CM Mann
The Centre will bail out the farmers of Punjab from the mess they are passing through during the current paddy procurement season, Union minister or state for Railways and Food Processing Ravneet Singh Bittu has said.
Bittu, who had promised to become bridge between Delhi and Punjab after joining the third Modi government, told The Tribune that Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Food Minister Lal Chand Kataruchakk must be held squarely responsible for the ongoing crisis relating to moving last year’s paddy out of Punjab, so that space can be made for this year’s harvest.
The Railways, Bittu said, had already moved 212 trains of stored foodgrains from Punjab in the past 20 days — 140 trains had carried wheat and 72 trains had ferried rice from FCI Punjab region between October 1 and 20.
“With each train carrying 60,000 bags of 50-kg each, that is 30,000 quintals in each train, as many as 6.36-lakh metric tonnes of stored foodgrains have already been moved from the state this month so far,” Bittu said. The government was “a total failure” in procuring and lifting of paddy, he added, insisting that the farmers were facing a tough time in selling their produce at the mandis due to the state’s “mismanagement”.
“Where is CM Mann and his Food Minister Kataruchakk?” the BJP leader asked, saying that neither had been seen in the mandis. He admitted that the new paddy variety, PR-126, was, indeed, the “major issue” behind the present crisis. The Centre requires 67-kg rice for every quintal of paddy milled by the rice shellers whereas the new variant was giving 62-63-kg per quintal yield. The ensuing shortfall of 5-4-kg per quintal was preventing rice millers from accepting the paddy stocks piled up in the mandis, Bittu said.
The Modi government’s “pro-farmer” stance meant that the Centre had not only offered enhanced MSP of Rs 2,320 per quintal for paddy this season but also provided the CCL with Rs 44,500 crore for KMS 2024-25, of which not even 10 per cent had been disbursed by the state government so far.
