Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal meets PM on wheat procurement

AHMEDABAD: Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to direct the concerned authorities to expedite movement of foodgrain from Punjab and to augment the storage space in the state.

Badal appraised the PM that Punjab is suffering on two issues — the slow movement of foodgrain in the state and the Centre has not yet accorded the approval for construction of storage capacity.

He requested the PM to immediately accept the proposal of state government for storage capacity addition to avert chaos and law and order situation in the state.
Punjab was facing an acute shortage of space for the storage of foodgrains. As per the government survey, the FCI in

Punjab is facing a shortage of 71 lakh tonne. In view of this situation, the state procurement agencies were compelled to store wheat in open and even on unscientific plinths such as rice mills, mandi yards and katcha plinths.

At present, more than 90% of wheat storage is in open. The shortage of covered space is adversely affecting the rice acceptance in the central pool.