Acting on the request of the Punjab government to revisit the specifications of shrivelled grains in wheat procurement, the Centre on Tuesday decided to constitute five teams to assess the extent of the problem in the state.
A spokesperson of the state government said these teams of the food and public distribution department of the central government will arrive in the state on Wednesday and will visit 15 districts to get a first-hand assessment of the extent of shrivelled grain arriving in the mandis. This data will then help the central government in taking a final decision on grant of appropriate relaxation in the specifications, he said.
Due to extreme heat conditions, the wheat grain has become shrivelled in many places and the grain coming in certain mandis contains such grains beyond the permissible limit of 6%. The spokesperson said that during the visits of these teams, the ongoing purchase in certain mandis may be temporarily disrupted and he appealed to the farmers and the functionaries of the procurement agencies to cooperate in this regard.
Earlier, while seeking relaxations in norms, food, civil supplies and consumer affairs minister Lal Chand Kataruchak said the sudden unprecedented heat wave, which descended quite early from the last week of March itself and continued over the last two weeks, has caused the wheat grain to shrivel.
“It is unfair to refuse to purchase any heap brought in by the farmer, which has a higher percentage of shrivelled grains than what is prescribed,” he said in a statement, adding that the FCI regional office has also been collecting samples and compiling the reports in this regard from its district offices.
Even as there was a marginal drop in day temperatures in most parts of Punjab on Tuesday, hot weather conditions continued to prevail, with Ludhiana recording a maximum of 40°C, Jalandhar 39.9°C , Amritsar 39.5°C and Patiala 39.1°C.
