Over 11k cr paid to 3.5L farmers for wheat: Min

Chandigarh: Punjab minister for food, civil supplies and consumer affairs Lal Chand Kataruchak said on Sunday that Punjab has been witnessing peak arrivals for the past week and more than 60% of the total expected arrival of wheat has already come into the mandis in a very short period of about 10 days.
The cabinet minister said over Rs 11,000 crore stands released into the accounts of about 3.54 lakh farmers until Saturday evening. He further added that more than 4 lakh metric tonne(LMT) has been lifted from the mandis in a single day on Saturday after the Food Corporation of India(FCI) permitted short-term storage of wheat in open plinths.
Kataruchak said to ensure complete transparency in the procurement of wheat, a vehicle tracking system (VTS) has been implemented in the state during the ongoing wheat procurement season. He said as on date, 26,250 transport vehicles have been fitted with global positioning system (GPS) devices which help in tracking their movement from the mandis (grain markets) to various godowns. “More than 95,421 online gate passes have been issued through the VTS and issuance of manual passes has been abolished. This is helping the department to track the movement of trucks so that any mischievous attempt can be foiled,” he said.