More than 25 lakh metric tonnes (MT) of wheat has so far arrived in mandis (grain markets) of Haryana. Haryana Food and Supplies Minister, Ram Bilas Sharma on Wednesday said that the wheat arrival in mandis is picking up fast and so far over 25,07,685 metric tonnes of wheat has arrived, of which 25,07,585 metric tonnes of wheat has been procured by government procuring agencies.
Giving details, Sharma said that over 10.86 lakh MT of wheat has been purchased by Hafed, whereas Food and Supplies Department has purchased 7.56 lakh MT wheat. Haryana Agro Industries Corporation purchased over 2.43 lakh MT wheat, Haryana Warehousing Corporation more than 4.15 lakh MT and CONFED 5,800 metric tonnes of wheat.
So far, district Karnal is leading in wheat arrival where over 3.27 lakh metric tonnes of wheat had arrived in the mandis followed by Kaithal with over 3.12 lakh MT wheat, Jind with over 2.36 lakh MT, Kurukshetra more than 2.06 lakh MT and Sirsa over 2.43 lakh metric tonnes of wheat. Notably, the incessant rains and hailstorm in the past couple of months has delayed the harvesting and procurement process during the current Rabi marketing season and has also resulted in huge losses to the state farmers.
According to the state’s crop damage assessment report in nine districts till April 18, Rohtak, Gurgaon and Kaithal districts of Haryana has witnessed maximum wheat crop damage with a total of 2.62 lakh acres wheat acreage getting affected by freak weather conditions. And, more than 50 percent crop damage has been reported in over one lakh acres of land in the nine districts of the state.