Farmers, agents trash authorities’ claims of efficient lifting
The tall claims being made by the authorities concerned about 75 per cent of the procured paddy having been lifted from 68 mandis and 20 temporary procurement centres of the district notwithstanding, the farmers and commission agents (arhtiyas) said the movement of the procured paddy was sluggish and not more than 25 per cent of it had been lifted.
1, 83, 889 metric tonnes (MT) of paddy had been purchased by various government procurement agencies in the district till Saturday evening. Saying the paddy lifting was being made on a war footing, Vineet Kumar, Faridkot Deputy Commissioner, said 1,34,635 MT of the procured paddy had already been lifted.
The DC said till Saturday evening, 2,26,041 MT of paddy had arrived in the district’s mandis. Farmers and arhtiyas said due to tardy and sluggish lifting of paddy, the procurement centres were bursting at the seams and farmers were not brining their crop to the mandis anymore.
Arhtiyas said they were facing a big challenge in handling PR-126 and other hybrid varieties of the paddy this time. These short-duration varieties of paddy had reluctant buyers and rice millers were not accepting it for an alleged intrinsic defect of high percentage of broken grain during shelling and milling.
