Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, while talking to journalists, said that he met Union Minister Prahlad Joshi in Delhi today. During this, issues like wheat procurement, demands of commission agents, agriculture and distribution system (RDF) and public distribution system (PDS) were discussed. He said that the meeting took place in a cordial atmosphere. Union Minister Joshi assured that their demands would be resolved soon.
Chief Minister Mann said that he has requested the Union Minister to send a team soon to take stock of the damage caused to crops due to unseasonal rains in the state. According to CM Mann, Minister Prahlad Joshi said that an order will be issued to solve this problem. Teams will be sent to take stock of the state.
Chief Minister Honor Said that he also placed the issue of commission agents mainly before the Union Minister. The Chief Minister said that the commission agents are demanding that they be given 2.50 percent commission, whereas the Central Government has decided to give commission of Rs 50.75 per quintal on wheat and Rs 50.61 per quintal on paddy. However, considering the expenses of the commission agents, this decision is not acceptable to them.
Chief Minister Mann said that the agents are demanding that they should be given Rs 4.75 more and this demand is directly related to the Centre. We have put this matter before the Center and have also said that after talking to the agents, they have postponed the strike. This demand of the agents has been mainly put before the Centre.
Chief Minister Mann said that 155 lakh metric tonnes of wheat is lying in covered warehouses in Punjab. We had requested the government and FCI to remove the entire stock through special trains so that space can be made for the new crop.
The Chief Minister said that we have demanded that wheat and rice should be made available to the countrymen under the Public Distribution System (PDS) and Pradhan Mantri Anna Kalyan Yojana. On this, Minister Joshi assured that the warehouses will be vacated by running more trains than the special trains running between April-May.
Along with this, on the issue of CCL (Cash Credit Limit), Chief Minister Mann said that if a state government takes money from RBI and on the other hand the central government takes money from RBI, then there is a difference of 0.55 percent in interest. This means that the state gets more interest.
Chief Minister Mann said that the Union Minister responded positively to this and said that this demand is also justified. We will raise this issue with the Union Finance Minister. Chief Minister Mann said that this difference is only 0.55 percent, but due to this our Mandi Board is incurring a loss of Rs 500 crore. Chief Minister Mann said that the cash credit limit of Punjab is Rs 33,000 crore.
