Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday said that the Centre will provide relaxation in quality norms for wheat procurement by Food Corporation of India during Rabi season. However, the quantum of relaxation would be decided after getting the reports of crop damage, he said. The Union Minister along with Minister of State for Agriculture Sanjeev Kumar Balyan was in Chandigarh to take stock of crops damaged in Haryana by untimely rains and hailstorm. After meeting Haryana Chief Minister and concerned officials of the State Government to assess the crop damage, the Union Minister while addressing a Press conference here said that he has asked the State Government to send the final report of Girdawari (assessment exercise) to the Centre at the earliest so that the due financial assistance could be released timely.
The State Government has demanded special central assistance of Rs1136 crore on account of damage to crops between the period from March 1 to 22, he said. As no compensation was provided by the Centre for crop loss upto 50 per cent, the Chief Minister Manohar lal had demanded a bonus of Rs100 per quintal from the Centre and also, a compensation of Rs10,000 per acre should be given in case of 100 per cent damage to crops, he added. The Union Minister said that efforts would be made to ensure that the Union Government provides the due amount of compensation to the State Government by April 30. The quantum of compensation and bonus would be decided soon. He said that the central teams are visiting all over the states where the crop has been damaged due to flood, rain or hailstorm.
On being asked about the decision of Union Government that the FCI would not procure wheat in Haryana during the current Rabi season, Paswan said that it depends upon the State Government whether they wanted to purchase the entire produce at their own level or continue with the earlier system. However, wheat to be procured by State agencies would be meant for FCI. Haryana Government has already decided that five State-owned procurement agencies would procure wheat crop for central pool from growers on behalf of FCI during ensuing Rabi Marketing season 2015-16. When asked about Government’s stand on the issue of reservation for the Jat community, the Union Minister refused to comment. Notably, the Supreme Court had last week scrapped reservation for the Jat community given by the UPA Government in nine States of India in March last year.
Commenting on the implementation of recommendations of Swaminathan Committee report, Union Minister of State for Agriculture Sanjeev Kumar Balyan said that though it is not possible to give 50 per cent profit on MSP at one go, Haryana Chief Minister has suggested that recommendations of the Swaminathan report should be implemented in a phased manner and the government is considering the same. later, the central team led by the two Ministers visited Haryana’s Bhiwani district to take stock of the crop damage.