Chandigarh: Haryana deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala on Sunday announced that wheat procurement would start at 400 sites across the state from April 1. Last year, wheat procurement started from April 10.
Dushyant claimed that advanced procurement and release of payment within 24 hours after completion of J-form would be the government’s reply to those “misleading farmers about mandis and MSP.”
“Mandis are existing and minimum support price (MSP) will stay forever. About 400 small and big procurement centres will be set up for procurement of wheat. Apart from this, mandis will be set up according to the needs of farmers,” he said.
Addressing a press conference, Dushyant said Haryana was the only state in the country where six crops, including wheat, mustard, pulses, gram, sunflower and barley were purchased at MSP. “For the first time in the state, barley crop will be procured on MSP and for this, seven mandis have been earmarked,” he said.
He expressed the hope that neighbouring states would also adopt this policy in the interest of farmers. Dushyant said 7.25 lakh farmers of the state have registered on the ‘Meri fasal mera byora’ portal for sale of wheat so far. Besides, 1.03 lakh farmers of neighboring states have also registered on this portal, he said.
Referring to farmers’ protests and announcements of barring entry of BJP-JJP leaders, Dushyant said farmers have been misled. “Doors of dialogue at all the levels are open. We never wanted to confront, hence we respect their moves,” he said.
Meanwhile, he claimed that the excise and taxation department had overshot targets for the third quarter of 2020-21. He said the department had fixed March 15 as the deadline for village representatives to submit their objections for not opening liquor vends in their areas.