Punjab offers to bail out farmers on damaged wheat

Chandigarh, April 23 (IANS) With farmers in Punjab facing uncertainty over procurement of damaged wheat grains, the state government on Wednesday assured them that they would not be allowed to suffer due to vagaries of weather and it would procure wheat grains at full minimum support price (MSP).

"No farmer would be allowed to suffer due to vagaries of weather," Punjab Food and Supplies minister Adaish Pratap Singh Kairon said.

Kairon said he had taken up the matter with the union food ministry to help out farmers who had suffered damage to their crop due to unseasonal rain and erratic weather.

He said all agencies have been directed to step up procurement of wheat from all the purchase centres.

Over 4.25 lakh tonnes of wheat has been procured so far this season. Harvesting has been delayed due to higher moisture content in the grains due to recent rainfall.

The state government also announced that wheat grains would be procured from farmers at full MSP. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Punjab cabinet on Wednesday.

"The cabinet today decided that the farmers in the state would be given full MSP of their harvest and the value cut imposed by government of India would not be passed on to the farmers for none of their fault," a spokesman of the chief minister’s office said here.