Mohali/Chandigarh, October 17, 2024: Aam Aadmi Party, Punjab State General Secretary and Chairman of Punjab Mandi Board, S. Harchand Singh Barsat informed that today bumper crop of paddy has started arriving in the mandis across Punjab. Even though this time the crop is 10-12 days late as compared to the last season, but now the crop is arriving in huge quantities in the mandis. He has appealed to all the commission agents, mandi related agencies, especially FCI, Pangrain, Punsup, including all that the farmers have worked very hard for the last five months and nurtured their crop like children and no farmer should face any problem in its purchase.
He said that due to the discrimination done by the Bharatiya Janata Party with Punjab, today about 20 thousand metric tonnes of rice is lying in the store in the shellers of Punjab. Similarly, in the warehouses of Punjab, whether it is FCI, warehouse or any other warehouse, about 150 lakh metric tonnes of rice and wheat are lying in stock. All this stock, whether of shellers or godowns, is the stock of FCI, the stock of the Central Government and it was the responsibility of the Central Government to lift this stock on time, but it was not lifted by the Centre. Due to this, the sheller owners are facing the problem of where they will store the rice after extracting it from the new paddy.
S. Barsat assured that the Honorable Chief Minister of Punjab, S. Bhagwant Singh Mann has been coordinating with the Central Government in this regard for a long time, but in the past, a special meeting was held with the Union Food Supply Minister Prahlad Joshi, in which the Union Minister assured that soon all this stock will be lifted from here, for which 20 special trains will be run every day.
 He told that the Union Minister has also assured to increase the commission of the commission agents from 2% to 2.5%. Along with this, the Union Minister has assured that the out turn of rice will be reduced from 67% to 62%, because less rice comes out of the new variety PR 126. He said that even though the Central Government has assured us this, but we want the Central Government to vacate all these stores/godowns at full speed and pay the dues of the commission agents and provide facilities to the farmers and laborers, because the Punjab Government, under the leadership of the Honorable Chief Minister Mr. Bhagwant Singh Mann, all the ministers, MLAs and leaders of the organization are engaged in the work of lifting the crop from the mandis properly.
The State General Secretary said that strong arrangements have been made by the Punjab Mandi Board to run the procurement operations smoothly. He said that there are 156 permanent market committees, which mainly have 152 procurement centers, 283 subyards and 1383 procurement centers. 401 more procurement centers have been created to ensure proper procurement of this crop. Thus, today a total of 2219 procurement centers are running in the whole of Punjab. Strong arrangements have been made in all these procurement centers for clean drinking water, electric lights, cleanliness, bathrooms, shade etc. Punjab government has already received CC limit of about Rs 41,300 crore so that farmers can be paid for their produce within 24 hours.
He informed that about 1275 permanent employees of Mandi Board, 452 outsourced employees and 6 thousand other employees for seasonal arrangements, about 7727 employees are working day and night in this Mandi system so that farmers, commission agents and labourers do not face any kind of problem. 
He said that the government is standing with farmers, labourers, commission agents and rice millers in every way. He also appealed to all social organisations and farmers unions to actively cooperate with the government and various agencies in getting the produce of farmers lifted.