Officials should make arrangements for procurement of kharif crops: Haryana deputy chief minister

 Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala on Monday directed officials to make all necessary preparations for the procurement of kharif crops so that farmers in the state do not face any difficulty.

The deputy chief minister said this during a review meeting regarding the arrangements made for procurement of kharif crops with the officers of various departments including Food, Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare departments, Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board, besides Food Corporation of India and other agencies involved in the process.

During the meeting, he also said the central government would be requested to grant permission for allowing the procurement of paddy, which is procured for the public distribution system (PDS), from September 25 instead of October 1, according to an official statement here. The state government wants the procurement to be staggered in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

As many as 200 additional procurement centres will be set up for procurement of paddy that will bring the total procurement centres to 400, said Chautala, who also holds the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs departments. The procurement centres will be set up in eight districts with high paddy production. The deputy chief minister was apprised by officials that this time the number of procurement centres for procurement of bajra will be almost doubled with a total of 120.

As many as 30 procurement centres will be set up for 'moong', while earlier there were 15 centres.Interacting with media persons after the meeting, Chautala said every single grain of farmers' crops will be procured by the state government.

Chautala, who also holds Civil Aviation department portfolio, informed that the work of taxiway at Hisar Airport has started and work for runway extension will also start soon. Earlier in the day, he also presided over another meeting with the officials of the Civil Aviation department.

Replying to a query, he said the work of runway extension will also start soon, for which No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the department concerned is yet to come, but the government has granted permission to the agencies involved to keep their machines to be used for this purpose on site.

“As soon as the NOC is received, the work of runway extension will start immediately and after that construction of terminal will also be started,” he said. 

(Image Credits:PTI)