Cabinet urges Centre to relax wheat procurement norms

The Punjab council of ministers on Monday urged the Centre to relax the specifications for wheat reaching the state mandis for procurement, in view of the unseasonal rainfall, high-velocity winds and hailstorm that lashed the state when crop was at the maturing stage.

A decision to this effect was taken by the council of ministers in a meeting chaired by chief minister Bhagwant Mann here. The cabinet requested the Centre to order appropriate relaxation in specifications without any value cut, which will compound the problems of the farmers who had already suffered significant crop loss due to rain and winds.

This is the second consecutive wheat crop that has suffered damage. In 2022, the rabi crop suffered damage leading to yield loss of 15% due to sudden rise in temperature when the crop was at the maturing stage.

“Rain at the time of maturing stage of wheat crop caused considerable damage to the standing crop and also affected the quality of the wheat grains because of waterlogging, leading to loss of luster and blackening of the grain,” noted the cabinet, requesting that prescribed uniform specifications of wheat with regard to damaged, slightly damaged, shriveled and broken grains, luster and moisture content should be relaxed by the Centre.

Relaxation from the Centre awaited

Notable, eight teams comprising of scientists from the Union ministry of food and public distribution visited the mandis across the state to draw samples of freshly-harvested crop reaching the mandis. Reportedly, the scientists have submitted their report to the ministry, however, a communication to the state government is awaited. Due to rainfall, overall wheat yield is expected to fall by 10 to 15%, due to which the food and civil supplies department that carries out wheat purchase for the Central pool through state’s four agencies, is now expecting arrivals of 90 to 95 lakh tonnes of wheat for purchase.

The state government is conducting special girdawari to assess the loss to crops. It was also decided in the meeting that in-charge cabinet ministers will undertake tours in their respective districts as chairpersons of the district grievances committee to oversee the girdawari operations.

Cabinet seeks increase in compensation

In today’s meeting, the cabinet further observed that the share of Centre in compensation given per acre to the farmers for compensating the loss due to natural disaster was on lower side, in wake of the exorbitant hike in the prices of agriculture inputs borne by the farmers to raise the crop.

The Punjab government has recently enhanced its own share to ₹8,200 from existing ₹6,600 to ensure that the farmers having crop loss more than 75% are given ₹15,000 per acre. The cabinet urged the Government of India for upward revision of the compensation to the affected farmers.

Nod for sending case of inmate seeking premature release

The cabinet also gave green signal for sending the case of a prisoner for seeking premature release of life convict confined in state jail. After the nod of cabinet, under Article 163 of the Constitution of India, the special remission/premature release cases are submitted to the Punjab Governor under Article 161 of the Indian Constitution.