Staff of Punjab’s four procurement agencies halt wheat purchase

By Gurpreet Singh Nibber

The staff of Punjab’s four procurement agencies on Sunday halted the wheat procurement, alleging political pressure “to purchase the freshly harvested crop which has high moisture content, ignoring the quality standards”.

“The coordination committee (of all procurement agencies in Punjab) has decided to suspend procurement operations,” said the spokesperson of the joint coordination committee.

The coordination committee has members from agencies, including the Punjab state warehousing corporation, Markfed employees’ union, and Punsup, the government agencies that are primarily responsible for purchasing the produce.

The procurement season started from April 1, and in 12 days, 1 lakh tonnes produce has arrived. The harvesting was delayed due to rainfall last week. The government, on its part, has called a meeting with the district food and civil supplies controllers on Monday to sort out the issues.

In a communiqué sent to the principal secretary, the state’s food and civil supplies department, the committee said that the wheat arriving in the mandis does not meet Fair Average Quality (FAQ) standards and when the field staff go to procure this wheat, “they face political and administrative pressure to purchase it.”“The permissible limit of moisture in the wheat is 12%, but the produce arriving in the mandis has moisture upto 22%,” the letter added.

The letter to the principal secretary adds that due to unseasonal rains, the quality of the produce has been compromised with high moisture content and lustre loss, and it cannot be procured immediately without a clear-cut advisory from the Centre over relaxation.

The procurement staff is upset because Major Singh of PUNGRAIN in Patiala district was relieved from his procurement duty because he refused to purchase wheat that did not meet the prescribed government quality standards.

The communication adds that there are clear-cut instructions from the state government: “Any wheat that does not meet standards should not be procured. If any staff member procures such wheat, administrative action will be taken against them.”

According to Vinay Sharma, president of the PSWC field staff union, the central and state governments have issued instructions not to procure the crops that do not meet the specifications. “Now if any field official procures crops with lustre loss, he will be held responsible,” he added.

The state government has already raised a red flag, subsequent to which the central teams have arrived for crop quality analysis.

Six teams of the level of deputy directors and assistant directors from the Union ministry of food and public distribution are already in the state to analyse the crop quality. On Sunday, they visited four districts, Mohali, Bathinda, Muktsar and Patiala, to draw samples for further analysis and on Monday, the teams will draw samples from the mandis of Amritsar, Sangrur, Fatehgarh and Ropar.

A senior official of the state food and civil supplies department accepted that the staff is under pressure to procure the produce under the prevailing circumstances. “But the issue here is that, if the relaxed specifications are allowed, how would they justify the crop purchased that has suffered quality?” the official, who didn’t wish to be named, said, adding that the procurement staff is assisting the central teams in gathering the samples.

Food and civil supplies principal secretary Arshdeep Thind said all the issues will be addressed in the Monday meeting. “All the issues will be resolved soon. The central teams have arrived, and they are drawing samples. The wheat crop will be procured as per the specifications,” he added.

This article has been republished from The Hindustan Times.