Badal in firefighting mode over wheat procurement crisis

QUICK PILL

Non-payment

• Consortium of banks have withheld funds for wheat procurement in Punjab
• Chief Minister Badal is desperately trying to sort the mess out
• Unhappy farmers are now selling their crops in neighbouring Haryana

More in the story

• How will this crisis affect SAD\'s chances this poll season?
• What are the other parties there doing? 

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is in firefighting mode because of the decision by a consortium of nationalised banks, led by State Bank of India (SBI), to hold up funds for procurement of wheat for this season. 

Earlier the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reportedly claimed that food grain stocks worth Rs 12,000 crore have gone missing in Punjab. 

The Punjab government has denied any wrongdoing and has claimed that grain procured over the years have been duly accounted for.

But Badal knows that farmers going unpaid during the current procurement season does not augur well for him and his Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) just a few months ahead of the polls. There is reportedly a logjam in procurement centres. By 17 April, 36 lakh metric tonnes (mt) arrived in the mandis, out of which 31 lakh mt had been procured. The expected arrival for the season is pegged at 1.2 lakh mt. 

This has given the Opposition, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a major issue on the platter, especially as farmers are the core support base of the SAD and it cannot afford to antagonise them at this point in time.

Crisis management

Badal rushed to Delhi on Monday and sought the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for an immediate release of Cash Credit Limit (CCL) worth Rs 20,094 crore to enable the state government to make timely payment to farmers from whom his government procured wheat. Modi assured him of resolving the issue on priority.

The Punjab CM apprised Modi that an inordinate delay in CCL clearance would jeopardise ongoing procurement operations, leading to disaffection in the farming community that might lead to law-and-order complications. 

He conveyed that the farming community in Punjab is passing through a severe crisis as high input costs and a low minimum support price (MSP) has rendered agriculture non-profitable. "The ever decreasing margins and mounting debt on the farmers has further increased their woes, forcing more and more farmers to quit farming," Badal said. 

 He underlined that the farmers faced "a tragedy of frightening proportions" because of natural calamities on the one hand and a long series of disastrous, anti-farmer policies by successive Union governments since independence on the other.

Opportune moment

Both the Congress and the AAP are aggressively pursuing the issue of non-payment of dues to farmers. 

"If the farmers do not get their payments in the next 48 hours, we will start protests across the state. Everybody from the farmer to the commission agents to the labourers is disillusioned over not getting the payments," Ahbab Singh, AAP's farmers' wing secretary, told Catch.

He pointed out that, besides payments, farmers are facing problems on account of storage of their grains and the lack of basic amenities such as drinking water and clean toilets at procurement centres. 

His party launched a drive to help farmers in procurement process and until now party cadres have been spread across 140 major procurement centres. The party plans to cover every centre over the next few days. This is a part of its strategy to draw its Kisan Dialogue that will be a key element in the party manifesto for the forthcoming polls.

"The farmers are facing a problem of gunny bags as there is a shortage of supply. There is also the problem of improper weighing at the procurement centres. The farmer cannot be denied his rightful payment after his hard labour of six months," said Singh.

Inn Punjab, procurement is carried out by the Food Corporation of India, PUNGRAIN, MARKFED, PUNSUP, State Warehousing Corporation and State Agro Industries Corporation.

State Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh has constituted a high-level committee of senior leaders to monitor wheat procurement.

The leader pointed out that given the track record of the last nine years of the Akalis, it is necessary for the Congress to stand by the farmers so that they do not face any harassment at the hands of the officials.

Amarinder has designated former Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Sunil Jakhar to monitor the developments related to the Rs 12,000 'wheat procurement scam' unearthed recently in Punjab. Jakhar will also monitor wheat procurement in Amarinder Singh's absence.

Already there are reports of farmers in areas bordering Haryana crossing over to the neighbouring state to get instant payment for their produce at mandis (markets) such as Dabwali and Kalanwali in Sirsa, Ratia, Jakhal and Tohana in Fatehabad along with those in Kaithal and Ambala districts.

The ruling party in Punjab has been on a back foot on the agrarian issue owing to repeated crop failures, growing debt of farmers and continuing farmer suicides. The SAD government has failed to check these phenomenon, while the Congress as well as the AAP have successfully made inroads to its core support base. 

The AAP leaders have been organising one campaign after another in rural Punjab while establishing direct connections with the population. Its campaigns on supply of spurious pesticides and substandard pea seeds to the farmers made a major impact. Of late, it has been desperately trying to woo back the farmers with a series of sops ahead of the polls.

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