Punjab Government’s prime focus is lifting in mandis: Lal Chand Kataruchak

Punjab Government’s prime focus is lifting in mandis: Lal Chand Kataruchak

Directs officers to speed up

Chandigarh, April 24:

The prime focus of the Punjab Government is the lifting in mandis, revealed the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Lal Chand Kataruchak today and asked the officers to speed up the same.

In a high level meeting at Anaj Bhawan with the top brass of the department, the Minister also exhorted the officers to concentrate for the next 15 days on accelerating the lifting in mandis so as to avoid glut like situation.

During the meeting, the Minister was apprised that the Principal Secretary of the department conducts meetings with the DCs every week in order to ensure there is no let up in the lifting process especially. The target is to make sure that the daily arrival figure of wheat in the mandis touches 5 Lakh Metric Tonnes (LMT).

The Minister expressed satisfaction that till now over 70 LMT of wheat has arrived in the mandis out of which more than 64 LMT stands procured.

On the payments front, Mr. Kataruchak said that payments worth Rs. 10574.36 crore have been credited into the accounts of the farmers and from point of view of payments within 48 hours, the percentage stands at 109 percent. Further, the lifting percentage with regard to 72 hours of procurement has touched 59 percent.

On the issue of e-KYC, it was brought to the notice of the Minister that the process has been done regarding 1.25 Lakh people which comes around to 81 percent. The Minister emphasized achieving the cent percent (100 percent) figure in this regard and said that the e-KYC ensures that the actual beneficiaries receive the benefits entailed under the National Food Security Act, 2013.

Among others present on the occasion included the Principal Secretary Rahul Tewari, Director Varinder Kumar Sharma, Additional Director Dr. Anjuman Bhaskar, and GM Finance Sarvesh Kumar.