He said that earlier the Mandi Board had established a total 3691 procurement centres including 1867 regular Mandis and 1824 temporary ones to facilitate the farmers of the state by ensuring adequate arrangements in these centres.
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WorldIndiaConfirmed17,656Deaths559Confirmed2,401,379Deaths165,044CHANDIGARH: In order to ensure hassle free procurement of wheat amid COVID-19 restrictions, the Punjab Mandi Board has converted 409 additional rice shellers as Sub Mandi Yards across the state during Rabi Marketing Season 2020-21.
Efficient and foolproof arrangements of procurement amid Covid-19 has led to arrival of 8.95 LMT of wheat till date, of which 7.54 LMT procured by the different government agencies.
Disclosing this here today, the Additional Chief Secretary Development Viswajeet Khanna said that with the addition of these shellers as Sub Mandi Yards, the No. of existing purchase centres in the state had gone up to 4100 to ensure smooth and seamless procurement in view of coronavirus.
He said that earlier the Mandi Board had established a total 3691 procurement centres including 1867 regular Mandis and 1824 temporary ones to facilitate the farmers of the state by ensuring adequate arrangements in these centres.
Khanna further revealed that the Mandi board has so far issued given 4.25 lac passes to the farmers through arthiyas including 79610 passes released yesterday. He further stated that of these total passes released till date, various farmers from across the state by making use of 1.84 lac passes have brought 8.95 LMT of their produce from April 15 to 19 as compared to 1.98 LMT arrived during the corresponding period of last year, which is reflected of seamless procurement operations during Rabi Marketing Season 2020-21 especially amid Covid-19 restrictions. He also mentioned that till date 7.54 LMT of wheat has been procured while 1.37 LMT was purchased during this period of last year.
Giving details about the said additional sub Mandi yards setup in rice shellers, ACS said that these centres had been setup in consultation with district Managers of the procurement agencies and District Mandi Officers. He said that in Jalandhar district as many five rice shellers had been converted as sub Mandi yards while 14 in Faridkot, 11 in Gurdaspur and two in SAS Nagar.
Likewise, six sub Mandi yards have been established in Fatehgarh Sahib district, 29 in Ferozepur, 28 in Sri Muktsar Sahib, 86 in Patiala, 108 in Sangrur and four in Hoshiarpur district. Similarly, in Ludhiana district 59 rice shellers were converted into sub Mandi yards, 24 in Moga besides establishing 33 temporary Mandis in Tarn Taran district.
ACS further informed that the sole objective of these additional Mandis was to avoid crowd and congestion in order to keep the spread of coronavirus under check.
Source: indiatimes.com