Foodgrain Management by State Procuring Agencies of Punjab and Haryana - An Empirical Analysis of MARKFED and HAFED

Proper procurement of food grains and their storage is essential for providing food security to the country and proper returns to the farmers. MARKFED and HAFED are the major procurement agencies of Punjab and Haryana. The present paper attempts to study the procurement and warehousing activities of these federations. The study is based on primary and secondary data. Tools like One-Sample Kolmogorov Smirnov Test, Reliability Analysis, Average Weighted Scores, Chi-square test, Mann Whitney Test, Kruskall-Wallis Test, exponential growth rate, coefficient of variation, mean and percentages has been used for the analysis of data. The study found that as per the opinion of employees, HAFED can be placed at higher level as compared to MARKFED in terms of procurement and warehousing activity. The federations should increase the number and improve conditions of godowns especially MARKFED, minimize the role of commission agents, bring more transparency in functioning and entail adequate support from government.