Punjab Food, Civil Supply and Consumer Affairs Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu on Monday said that the state has set precedence for the entire country in smooth conducting of procurement of wheat and paddy during lockdown.
In a press conference here at Punjab Bhawan, Ashu said that the state government has created 2,136 additional temporary purchase centers in the state thus increasing the total number of purchase centres to 4,006 during wheat procurement in Rabbi season of 2020-21. Elaborate arrangements were made in mandis as per heath protocol and a total of 127.11 lakh MT of wheat was procured by all the procurement agencies benefited more than 10 lakh farmers from the MSP scheme.
He informed that a total of 202.78 lakh MT of paddy was procured by all the procurement agencies during the season, which has been all-time highest paddy procurement in the state.
Ashu said that the Punjab government has distributed 15 lakh dry ration packets consisting of 10 kg of atta, 2 kg sugar and 2 kg pulses free of cost to the needy people/migrant labour, etc, during lockdown/Covid-19 pandemic, for which state has incurred an expenditure of approx. 78.2 crores of rupees from Chief Minister’s SDRF.
The Food and Civil Supply Minister said the state government distributed 5 kg wheat per month to each NFSA beneficiary and 1 kg pulses per month to each family free of cost from April 2020 to November 2020 (eight months) under the Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Anna Yojana. Approx. 95% beneficiaries have availed the benefit of the same.
Talking about timely payment to farmers, he said that we have been successful in ensuring the timely arrangement of funds for payment to farmers and other stakeholders with effective coordination and liaison with the RBI, Ministry of Finance and the Consortium of Banks led by SBI.
Setting the agenda for 2021, Ashu highlighted that the department plans to start sending a customised SMS to each NFSA beneficiary family at the beginning of the next distribution cycle informing them about their entitlement so that they can draw their ration on time from the FPS of their choice. He said that the State Government has set a target of 132 lakh MT of wheat to be procured during the coming Rabi season 2021-22. The Department plans to recruit 179 personnel during the year 2021.