Chandigarh, August 30
To give direct benefit to the farmers, the Punjab Government will reduce the commission to arhtiyas for cotton crop from 2.5 per cent to 1 per cent. A decision to this effect was taken by the government today, announced Agriculture Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal.
Threaten stir
The state government’s decision has not gone down well with the powerful arhtiya lobby in the state. Seeing this as a direct attack by the government, the commission agents have threatened to protest and close down mandis in the state.
This, however, has not gone down well with the powerful arhtiya lobby in the agrarian state. Seeing this a direct attack by the government, the commission agents have threatened to protest and close down the mandis in the state.
Vijay Kalra, president of Federation of Arhtiya Association of Punjab, said the AAP government seemed to be following the diktats of the BJP-led Centre. “Is it fair that the MSP on crops increases, but our commission decreases? We will be convening a meeting of all commission agents and hold a statewide protest,” he said.
The minister, however, said that commission to arhtiyas could not be given on cotton according to the ratio on wheat and paddy because expenses on paddy and wheat crops include cleaning, filling, weighing and transporting etc., but as per the information given by farmers there are no such expenses on cotton in the grain markets. He said as a result of this, the government has already reduced the market fee on cotton from 2 per cent to 0.5 per cent.
He said the farmers of cotton belt had been facing a lot of problems due to natural calamities such as bad weather and crop diseases, this decision would give some relief to the cotton farmers.
The Punjab Cotton Factories and Ginners Association, whose representatives met Dhaliwal here, brought to his notice that for the last few years the cotton crop had been facing various diseases and the farmers of the cotton belt had shifted from cotton to paddy.