Posted on Sunday, September 30, 2012 - 04:12 am:

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CHANDIGARH/AMBALA/YAMUNANAGAR/KURUKSHETRA: Even as Punjab and Haryana governments are getting ready for procurement of paddy from October 1, the previously stocked wheat has not been cleared from mandis across the two states.

The storage houses and government godowns are packed with previous year's produce, leaving no space for the fresh produce in the country's food bowl. Various food agencies have stocked 1.45 crore tonne wheat and paddy in Punjab's godowns from 2008. Out of this, only 30.58 lakh tonne has been covered while the rest is lying open.

In Haryana's Ambala, the total storage capacity is 8,000 tonne but the food and supply department procured around 70,000 tonne wheat this year. In such severe crunch of space, 62,000 tonne wheat was kept in the open for months.

"What can we do? Infrastructure is limited and arrival of wheat is increasing every year. This year alone, arrival has gone up to around 80,000 tonnes," said KK Bishnoi, district food and supply controller, Ambala.

The lifting of wheat from godowns of Karnal, Kurukshetra, Ambala, Jagadhari, Panipat, Kaithal, Jind and Fatehabad — pockets of the paddy crop in Haryana — has become a huge challenge.

Joint director of food and supply department, Haryana, AK Gaur said they have requested Food Corporation of India to lift the wheat stored near mandis. Deputy general manager (operations) of FCI Amitawa Goswami said they would lift around 2 lakh tonne wheat within a week from various mandis.

In Punjab, due to the government's failure to make adequate arrangements, out of the total stock kept for the central pool, 52,601 tonne wheat stocked by Markfed, Punjab Agro Food Corporation, Punjab Warehousing Corporation, Punjgrain and Punsup, became so rotten that FCI refused to take it for the central pool and termed it unfit for human consumption.

Out of the damaged wheat, 44,679 tonne is now being distributed for use as cattle feed. The decision on rest of the rotten stock is yet to be taken.

Officials said over 50 LMT of wheat in Punjab would have to be stored unscientifically due to lack of storage space. But sources said the figure could go up to 80 LMT as the milling of rice was also on in the state.

Karnal district food and supply comptroller Ravinder Malik said the farmers had started brining in their produce to the mandis when already around 6 lakh bags of wheat were still lying and the FCI officials had been asked to shift these bags so that the process to procure paddy would begin.

Rajkumar, an FCI official in Rohtak, said almost 50% of the total arrival in the rabi season has been lifted from the mandi and they are geared up to receive the new arrival of paddy. While admitting that the godowns are packed, he hoped that the covered space would be available by November end.

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