Haryana: Role of market committees under scanner in Karnal amid suspected wheat influx from UP

By Bhavey Nagpal

The district administration has initiated a probe into a suspected influx of wheat from Uttar Pradesh (UP), despite an active ban on such arrivals. As the investigation intensifies, the roles of three market committees in the district have come under scrutiny.

So far, a team formed by deputy commissioner Anand Kumar Sharma under additional deputy commissioner (ADC) Rahul Raiya has found that several commission agents allegedly facilitated the inflow of wheat from UP at three purchase centres and suspended the licences of 13 such agents.

This comes despite the state government having adopted stringent norms for the ongoing rabi marketing season-2026-27 to plug loopholes following a multi-crore scam in several districts during the paddy purchase last kharif season.

According to government rules, farmers are required to register themselves on the Meri Fasal, Mera Byora (MFMB) portal to obtain gate passes and sell their produce at the mandis. They are verified using biometrics as well as photographs of tractor-trailers loaded with wheat, displaying registration numbers uploaded on the portal.

Sources said that despite the new rules, commission agents in collusion with others, facilitated the wheat arrival, to avail the benefit of MSP.

“It came to light that on the MFMB portal, farmers registered more land area than they actually grew and colluded with their counterparts from UP, using commission agents, to manage the rest of the land. Now, the entire five acres registered under the farmers’ name in Haryana will enter the mandi, and none of this can happen without the knowledge of the market committees and their secretaries,” an official said.

Speaking to HT, the ADC said that they observed that the arrival of crop has reduced at most mandis in the district, but was constantly increasing at four purchase centres — Karnal new grain market, Indri grain market, Gharounda grain market and Biana sub-yard.

“As the teams got activated suspecting inflow from UP, at least three trailers were sent back from Gharounda after verification. So far, we have temporarily suspended 13 licences of commission agents for seven days: four in Karnal, six in Indri, and three in Biana. We are verifying procurement at different grain markets and have deployed naib tehsildars,” he said.

“To curb the inflow of wheat from UP, we have set up two permanent nakas along the Haryana-UP border. No unregistered farmer is allowed to bring wheat and sell it at the mandis. We have expanded our probe and further action will be taken this week,” he added.

The probe team now aims at permanently cancelling the licenses of tainted commission agents and establishing the role of market committee officials.

Karnal has so far recorded an arrival of 7.85 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of wheat, of which 7.48 LMT has been procured and 6.87 LMT lifted.

Unlike the overall state figures, the purchase in the district is less than last season’s 8.13 LMT, officials said.

This article has been republished from The Hindustan Times.