To provide more relief to farmers who have suffered loss of crops due to untimely rain, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar lal Khattar on Saturday announced that shriveled and broken grain of wheat would be procured without any value cut. This value cut, he said, would also not be applied on the wheat already procured. He assured the farmers that every grain, which is the result of their blood and sweat, would be procured.
Reviewing the procurement arrangement with agencies concerned, the Chief Minister directed them to ensure smooth and continuous procurement and stated no laxity in this regard would be tolerated. Khattar added that he had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding waiving off value cut on shriveled and broken grain of wheat. He said the matter had been taken up with the Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ram Vilas Paswan who has also endorsed the request made by the Haryana Government.
“The interest of farmer is the top most priority of our Government. Even if the Central Government does not concede our demand, the State Government would bear the cost and not the farmers. The wheat would be procured at the Minimum Support Price of Rs1,450 per quintal,” he said. Wheat grain with more than 50 per cent lustre loss has been arriving in few mandis of Palwal, Mewat, Sonipat and Jind. Khattar said he had also spoken to Paswan earlier in the day and urged him to allow procurement of such lustre loss wheat and as a result teams to collect samples have been sent to these mandis, he added.
The Chief Minister appealed to the farmers to bring wheat to the mandis after properly drying it up. He also stated that duties have been assigned to senior officers of the rank of Additional Chief Secretaries and Principal Secretaries to personally supervise procurement arrangements by visiting mandis so that every grain of the farmers is procured.