Chandigarh, April 28 (SocialNews.XYZ) Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday directed all procurement agencies to ensure prompt lifting and timely payment to farmers through the newly introduced direct benefit transfer (DBT) system.
Reviewing the wheat procurement progress at a virtual meeting with his Cabinet, the Chief Minister was informed that the payments are now being directly transferred into the bank accounts of the farmers who are numbering approximately 10 lakh.
He urged all those farmers, 'arhtiyas' or commission agents, labourers, employees of procurements agencies and other stakeholders, above the age of 45, visiting the grain markets to get themselves vaccinated at the vaccination camps in all 154 market committees across the state.
On inquiring about the availability of gunny bags, the Chief Minister was informed by Principal Secretary, Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, K.A.P. Sinha, that the issue had been sorted out and there was no shortage.
Some instances of shortage were reported earlier from some grain markets as the Centre had allocated fewer bales in contrast to the requirement of the state agencies and early arrivals had pushed up demand, he said.
However, after the permission for use of good quality used bags arranged by the 'arhtiyas' was obtained on April 18 there has been no shortage of bags and as of now, a total of 19.19 crore gunny bags have already been used for packaging of wheat, the meeting was informed.
The Cabinet was also informed that the Punjab Mandi Board had set up 'farmers help desks' in the grain markets across the state, where IT professionals along with board officials were assisting the farmers in their registration on the Anaaj Kharid portal to ensure timely payment directly into their bank accounts under the DBT scheme.
It was also informed that till earlier seasons the Department of Food transferred the payments into the bank accounts of nearly 22,000 commission agents for making further payments to the farmers.
Source: IANS
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