With the harvesting of paddy going on at full swing, farmers are facing problems such as delay in issuing of gate passes and tardy lifting. Due to this, long queues of paddy laden tractor-trailers can be seen along the roads leading to grain markets in paddy-sowing belts of Haryana, which are causing traffic snarls.
Farmers are struggling to get gate passes, necessary for selling the produce on minimum support price of ₹2,203 a quintal, at the entrance of mandis. As per reports from grain markets, similar problems are being faced by farmers in Indri, Nilokheri and Taroari of Karnal, Ladwa, Pipli, Shahbad and Babain of Kurukshetra and old grain market of Kaithal.
According to farmers and officials, the arrival of paddy begins around 4 am but farmers have to wait for several hours to get gate passes and this leads to traffic chaos. Moreover, slow lifting of the procured paddy leads to space crunch and traffic jams inside and outside the mandis.
Karnal grain market officials said technical snags are also behind problems in generating gate passes. In Karnal, commuters faced a lot of inconvenience due to tractor-trailers that blocked the traffic on service roads on both sides of the Delhi-Chandigarh (NH 44) for several hours. Locals said the situation has been bad since the government introduced new rules after the introduction of the Meri Fasal Mera Bayora portal.
As per figures released by the Haryana Civil Suppliers and Consumer Affairs Department, a total of 15.98 lakh MT of paddy has arrived in state mandis of which around 13.72 lakh MT has been auctioned and only 8.29 lakh MT of procured paddy has been lifted. Around 40% of the procured paddy and 49% of total arrived produce is still lying in the mandis.
{{/usCountry}}As per figures released by the Haryana Civil Suppliers and Consumer Affairs Department, a total of 15.98 lakh MT of paddy has arrived in state mandis of which around 13.72 lakh MT has been auctioned and only 8.29 lakh MT of procured paddy has been lifted. Around 40% of the procured paddy and 49% of total arrived produce is still lying in the mandis.
{{/usCountry}}Due to space crunch and traffic jams, farmers have to spend 12 to 15 hours in the mandis to sell their produce.
Karnal district food and supplies controller Anil Kalra said, “Around 50% of the procured paddy has been lifted and rice millers have been told to rope in more trucks for the task.”
Small farmers, who do not have their own tractor-trailers, are hit the most as they rent the vehicles at hefty charge to bring their produce to mandis but end up paying extra money because of the delay. “We have to spend over 10 hours to sell one trailer in the mandi and have to pay extra for the diesel and time,” said Singh Ram lined up at Karnal’s Indri grain market.
However, Mukul Kumar, director and special secretary to Haryana Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department, said, “The lifting operations have improved as around 8.29 lakh MT (60%) of the total 13.72 lakh MT paddy procured in the mandis has been lifted and further efforts are being made to improve lifting operations.”