Left high and dry for over 10 days due to the non-procurement of wheat, farmers in the state finally breathed a sigh of relief yesterday evening with the agencies starting the process.
Sources in the Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board said that today, the procurement started in most state mandis following strict instructions from the higher authorities.
Farmers opposed they had been putting up at grain markets for the last couple of days, but the agencies were not in a mood to procure their yield at the MSP. It was only after raging farmers held protests that the procedure kicked off.
“Today, at Gharaunda in Karnal district, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and Agriculture Minister JP Dalal visited the grain market following which instructions were issued to start the procurement immediately,” said a board official.
Prior to this, protesting farmers blocked the Kaithal-Jind highway in front of the grain market in Kaithal. They said they were told to wait till the moisture in the grain dried up. Hoshiar Singh Gill, a farmer, said that the agency officials softened their point of view after their protest.
Satish of Baland village in Rohtak said the government should relax the norms regarding lustre loss and moisture content as the farmers had already suffered losses due to the recent rains.
Shamsher Singh of Ladwa village in Hisar said they had been forced to wait for days on the pretext of high moisture content and lustre loss.
An official said, in Hisar district, so far agencies have procured 2.14 lakh quintals of wheat out of 4.9 lakh quintals that arrived in the mandi. In Rohtak, of the total arrival of 11,600 quintals of wheat, several agencies purchased 8,600 quintals.
