New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh government is charging ? 20 per quintal in cash in the name of unloading and cleaning charges for wheat procured from farmers and has not reimbursed them in the last three years, an MP in Rajya Sabha alleged. Raising the issue through a Zero Hour mention, Javed Ali Khan of the Samajwadi Party said the government has fixed a minimum support price of ? 1925 per quintal for wheat but farmers are being paid only ? 1905.

Narrating his own experience of selling wheat at a government-mandated procurement centre, he claimed that he was asked to pay ? 20 per quintal in cash as cleaning and unloading charges. "When I demanded so see the order to this effect, the official at the procurement mandi showed me an Uttar Pradesh government order mandating ? 20 per quintal as a charge for unloading and cleaning," he said. The order stated that this charge would be reimbursed to farmers once cleared by the Centre and approved by the chief minister, he said, adding farmers have not received any reimbursement in the last three years.

"They don`t take cheque or do an (RTGS) account transfer. They take cash and do not give a receipt," he alleged. He said 36 lakh tonnes of wheat was procured in Uttar Pradesh this year and ? 72 crore has been collected from farmers as this charge. At the national level, ? 780 crore may have been collected as part of these charges from farmers on 90 lakh tonnes of wheat procured, he said asking under what account can cash be taken and no receipt given. Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu asked the government to take note of the issue.

Leader of the Opposition and senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad raised the issue of abolition of self-help groups for engineers in Jammu and Kashmir which has rendered 15,000 people unemployed. He said economic activity has come to a standstill and unemployment has risen since the time Jammu and Kashmir was downgraded to a UT 13 months ago. In 2003, the Congress-PDP government had constituted self-help groups for unemployed engineers so they could take up contracts.

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