Up in arms against the powers-that-be, the arhtiyas (commission agents) in Punjab have made it clear that they would not procure a single grain of paddy till October 5 while opposing the Central Government’s direct payment system.
The commission agents have alleged that the government is harassing them in the name of uploading bank accounts and Aadhaar card numbers of farmers on Public Financial Management System (PFMS) portal.
On the other hand, the state’s farmers are left high and dry as their crop is lying open in the mandis with the threat of rains looming large.
As the procurement season started from Tuesday, October 1, the farmers are arriving in mandis in large number. As per figures, on the first day, the farmers across the state have unloaded 25,000 tonnes of paddy at around 1800 grain markets.
In Punjab, the procurement for central pool was done by the state government agencies, including Pungrain, Markfed, Punsup, Punjab State Warehousing Corporation (PSWC), besides the centre’s Food Corporation of India (FCI).
The farmers sold their crop to the government agencies through arhtiyas, who provide weighing machines, fans, labour for cleaning the crop and labour for unloading and uploading of the crop in mandis. For that, the government pay the arhtiyas 2.5 percent commission.
In addition, the payments of the farmers are first transferred into the arhtiyas’ bank account, and then they transfer payment to the farmers’ account.
Opposing the new system of ‘direct payment’ in the farmers’ bank accounts, Punjab’s Arhtiya Association has written to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh a day before.
They argued that the providing details of sale of the crop and linking bank accounts and Aadhaar numbers of the farmers with the portal, as per the FCI’s instructions, would affect their business.
Maintaining that the arhtiyas have decided to boycott the procurement process across the State, the Union on Wednesday declared that in case the government failed to meet their demands, they would continue the protest till October 5.
The Union stated that the PMFS data is being used for public distribution scheme, but the FCI has implemented it on the crop sale too. The government has also issued instructs to withhold charges payable to arhtiyas in case they fail to link farmers’ bank accounts with the portal.