Khanna, May 8: There were 170 special trains transporting wheat from Punjab to all parts of the country. It was also the first time that a silo was used for storage. More than 98 lakh metric tonnes of wheat have already been procured by the government and another 5-7 lakh tonnes are likely to be picked up soon. All tangible signs of a bumper wheat crop in Punjab this year—144 lakh tonnes of it.

Happily, the state was prepared for the grain glut. “Storing wheat in Punjab has never been a problem,” points out Dr P S Rangi, consultant, Punjab Farmers Commission. With the shortage of food grains at the Centre, the movement of wheat from Punjab has been regular. Of course, four years ago we had a problem of wheat stocks as old as three years lying with us. The situation now is totally different.”

Punjab has a capacity to store 139 lakh tonnes of wheat with an addition open storage space for 46 lakh tonnes. Sarvjit Singh, general manager, Food Corporation of India, says, “We only had 20 lakh tonnes of old wheat lying with us, so handling and storing the new wheat wasn’t a problem. And with 170 trains taking the wheat directly from the mandis, we were able to cut down on labour costs and avoid problems relating to storage.”

It also helped that a silo was commissioned at Dagru. It was set up by the Adani group in collaboration with the FCI and has already been used to store 2 lakh tonnes of grain.

The clockwork manner in which the procurement was undertaken has left all the stakeholders happy—the Government is pleased at the production, the farmer with his cheques and the transporters with their business. Jasdeep Singh a farmer-cum-transporter won contracts to lift grain from mandis and drive them to storage points from four procurement agencies this year—Pungrain, PUNSUB, Markfed and Punjab Agro. “Normally we need around 200 trucks for the grains at a mandi. This year we used nearly 400 trucks.” And the reasons for this: the farmers did not hold back any grain as the minimum support price at Rs 1,000 per quintal was very good. Jasdeep Singh adds, “The market arrival peaked around April 12-24 with a daily inflow of 3-5 lakh tonnes of wheat, leaving the mandi at Khanna with a capacity for 1lakh tonnes bursting at the seams.”

Similarly, Gurdip Singh, a transporter working with the Food Corporation of India, says, “My 20 trucks used to do three rounds a day, but when the market arrival peaked I had to press another 70 trucks into service.” While both the transporters are not very keen to talk about their profits, they admit they are satisfied with the business this season.

However, there were some niggling points along the way. These mainly had to do with the transportation of the wheat from the mandis to the storage points and the manual labour involved in loading and unloading the grains at these two points. “The major problem is that the Punjab Mandi Board gave the majority of contracts to people close to them,” alleges Dhani Ram, a transport and labour contractor. “So many of us who have been in this business for decades boycotted the entire process. We did not even give out our trucks on hire.

The rates paid to the transporters and manual labourers were also a sticking point at the beginning of the season. Chaudhry Budh Ram, a transporter, says, “The rates quoted by our rivals were too low to be practical. They paid 40 paise per bag for the manual loading and unloading of the grains and Rs 175 per round to the truck owner. This is just not viable. The labour demanded Re 1 per bag while the truck owners wanted at least Rs 250 per round. When the new contractors saw that the mandi was overflowing and any further delay could lead to damage of the crop, they had to hike the prices.” So till the new rates came into force, for almost the entire first week of the procurement season, there was no transportation of the packed and purchased wheat crop from some grain markets.

69 lakh mt total procurement in 2007.

144 lakh mt wheat production this year

98.63 lakh mt procurement till date

10.06 lakh mt procured by the FCI

83.27 lakh mt lifted by state agencies

2.67 lakh mt picked up by private agencies