The Madhya Pradesh state assembly today witnessed an uproar after the opposition (Congress) alleged the state government of procuring enormous quantities of wheat from neighbouring states.
During call attention motion, the members alleged that officials cultivated direct benefit of Rs 200 per quintal to middlemen and traders by procuring the commodity from neighbouring states. The issue, which was discussed for more than an hour, led to a chaos after food and civil supply minister for state, Paras Jain and his cabinet colleague Narottam Mishra made contradictory statements.
Jain brushed aside all allegations and denied any procurement from neighbouring states while Mishra, who is the parliamentary affairs minister said Madhya Pradesh said that lucrative prices is the reason why farmers get attracted to neighbouring states.
The state has procured an all-time high storage capacity of 49.85 lakh tonnes of wheat this year against 35 lakh tonnes last year. As a result, the opposition members alleged that thousands of tonnes of wheat is lying in the open and rotting. They also blamed the government of procuring wheat at cheaper prices from neighbouring states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and earning a benefit of Rs 200 or more per quintal. This way the local farmers were bereft of the benefit. Lack of transparency in the entire process was also discussed.
The food minister avoided questions on what policy the government had adopted to ensure that procurement should be made from local farmers only.