World Food Program to study Punjab wheat storage facility
Darpan News Desk IANS, 04 May, 2022 10:06 AM
Chandigarh, May 4 (IANS) A team of the World Food Program (WFP) on Wednesday started a visit to Punjab to understand the process of procurement, testing and transportation of wheat to Afghanistan so that a similar procedure can be adopted by it.
State Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Lal Chand Kataruchak said the five-member team of Sandro Banal, Filippo Zunino, Stephanie Heard, Amit Wadhera and Shruti will be visiting Amritsar to take a first-hand assessment of how long term storage of wheat is undertaken in Punjab, without deterioration in its quality.
Terming the recognition by the WFP for preserving the foodgrain by the state a matter of pride, the minister said Punjab, the food bowl of the nation, has been feeding the nation and now the grain produced in Punjab is feeding people abroad also.
It was also creditable that the western nations are now looking towards India to study preservation techniques for foodgrains and it speaks volumes of the progress made by the government of Punjab in this regard, he added. Senior officials of the state government and the FCI will be accompanying the team, he said, while assuring full cooperation to the team.
In a separate communication by the Ministry of External Affairs to the Department of Food and Public Distribution of the government of India on April 27 it had been conveyed that "WFP is highly satisfied with the quality of 10,000 metric tons of wheat provided by India to Afghanistan as humanitarian assistance".
This quantity of wheat had been moved from Punjab to Afghanistan via land route through Pakistan.
The transported wheat had been stored in PUNGRAIN steel silos of 50,000 metric tons capacity near Amritsar.
Canadian Immigration authorities on Sunday refused entry to two AAP MLAs — Kultar Singh Sandhwan (Faridkot) and Amarjit Singh Sandoa (Ropar). Sent back from the Ottawa airport, they are likely to reach New Delhi on Monday morning, said sources.
The victim was allegedly thrashed by the accused on Sunday night on the suspicion that she was having an illicit relationship with a 30-year-old man kept for household work.
M Siddiq, one of the original litigants of the Ayodhya case, had assailed certain findings of the 1994 verdict in the case of M Ismail Faruqui holding that a mosque was not integral to the prayers offered by the followers of Islam.
Balwant Singh Rajoana, the death row convict in the then Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh assassination case, on Friday ended his hunger strike in the Patiala central jail following a meeting with the SGPC chief.
The local police on Wednesday arrested a 36-year-old pastor from the Delhi airport on a charge of raping a woman follower, making a video of the act and then blackmailing her by threatening to upload the video on social networking sites.
The Union Territory of Chandigarh—the joint capital of Haryana and Punjab—remains one of the most contentious and long-standing issues between the two neighbouring states.
