They called off the strike after Chief Minister Amarinder Singh assured them that the government would release Rs 131 crore to them, otherwise due from the Central government.įarmers started bringing their produce from several districts April 10, but are still waiting for procurement two days later.

The Centre, however, refused, following which arhtiya associations across the state went on strike. The FCI in March had asked the state government for the land records of farmers to enable the payment, to which the state had responded saying it needed more time. Wheat is procured through MSP by both central and state agencies in the state. Punjab is the only state that does not carry out direct payments to farmers as mandated by the Union finance ministry’s public finance management system, according to FCI officials. The payments would earlier be routed through arhtiyas, according to Punjab Agriculture Produce Market Rules.Īs the state did respond, the FCI then sought directions from the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution on the course of action in case it did not comply. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) asked the state government in March had asked the state government to enable direct cash transfer of MSP to the bank accounts of farmers. The arhtiya associations had called off their strike at the state level over the new payment mode of direct transfer of MSP after intervention of the chief minister, but farmers say issues persist at the block / district level. It is provided by the arhtiyas but this year, due to the strike called by them, there is a lack of clarity on when we can take our produce to the mandi,” he said.Īrhtiyas, or commission agents, facilitate the procurement process at Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis and look after cleaning, sorting, weighing, loading and unloading of the produce there. No labour is available to clean and sort wheat. “The process has started on paper, but there is no one at the mandi. Navinder Singh from Gurdaspur district said he was yet to harvest his wheat crop because the process did not begin at the local mandi. The process has been slow across mandis (agri markets) in the state it has not even started at some places. The procurement process technically started April 10, but ran into several hassles on the first two days - from shortage of labourers to that of gunny bags. Since then, the commissioning agents ( arhtiyas) briefly went on strike over the state government’s decision to facilitate payment of minimum support price (MSP) through direct, online transfer, and uncertainty continues to loom large over the process. The season for procuring wheat in Punjab officially kicked off on April 10 - after a month-long war of words between the Centre and the Punjab government over the new rules of direct mode of payment to farmers.

Gunny mobile 2