Punjab Mandi Board secretary inspects grain markets of Ludhiana

LUDHIANA: To ensure smooth paddy procurement operations in the state mandis, Punjab Mandi Board Secretary Ravi Bhagat on Monday visited various mandis in Ludhiana district to take stock of the arrangements. He also interacted with farmers, commission agents (arhtiyas) and officials to enquire about their problems related to purchasing.
After inspecting procurement arrangements in grain markets, including Khanna, Doraha and Sahnewal, Bhagat said in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, it was a challenging task to gear up for procurement of paddy but the procurement has been going smoothly — all mandis have handwash stations, space to avoid chaos, proper sanitisation. He said this time the mandis have also been increased from 1,872 to 4,260 so that farmers can sell their crop in a hassle-free manner.
According to him, so far state mandis witnessed an arrival of 30 lakh MT paddy of which 90% crop has already been purchased. The secretary said in order to avoid chaos in mandis, pass system was introduced during the previous season, which is proving to be successful and so far a total of 10 lakh colour coded passes have been issued.
He appealed to the farmers to bring produce within specifications of moisture content laid by government of India. Bhagat said procurement will continue till November 30.