Wheat stacked in bags from Haryana

Farmers show a gunny bag of the Haryana government being used for wheat procurement at Wattoo village in Muktsar. Tribune photo

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, May 4

Apparently facing acute shortage of storage material to lift wheat from grain markets, wheat procurement agency Punjab State Warehousing Corporation is using gunny bags of neighbouring state Haryana.

Farmers from Wattoo village said the practice was going on for the past one week and nobody bothered. “The focal point is allotted to the Punjab State Warehousing Corporation for wheat procurement and 80 per cent of gunny bags here are of the Haryana government. The quality of bags is also poor, but the authorities concerned are not giving any satisfactory reply,” said Sukhwinder Singh, a farmer of Wattoo village.

Congress leader Jagjeet Singh said, “It shows that the state government has failed to make adequate arrangements of gunny bags, thus now using bags from Haryana.”

A senior officer, looking after the wheat procurement process in the district, said, “The issue was even brought to the notice of the Deputy Commissioner by officials of the FCI recently. The gunny bags of Haryana had come when the agencies were facing acute shortage of it.”

Paramjit Singh Dhamija, District Food and Civil Supplies Controller, Muktsar, said, “When the gunny bags came through goods trains, some bogie must have been changed. It will have no affect on the procurement process.”

Pushpinder Singh, District Manager, Punjab State Warehousing Corporation, was not available for comment.

Courtesy: The Tribune