CHANDIGARH: Punjab’s home department has rescheduled harvesting of wheat by combine harvesters from 7 am to 8 pm. At the start of the season, the government advisory had allowed harvesting between 6 am to 7 pm.“The matter has been re-examined in the light of suggestions received from the field on account of the fact that due to rising temperature the wheat fields can be harvested 8 till pm and there is moisture in the fields resulting from morning dew at 6 am,” said the letter to deputy commissioners in the state.Meanwhile, even as wheat procurement in Punjab entered the third day on Friday, three districts – Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur and Tarn Taran – were yet to open their accounts with arrivals yet to trickle in. Besides, there was not many farmers came up with their produce in Amritsar too, and only 21 metric tonnes (MT) of the 30 MT that arrived on Thursday was procured. The districts of Patiala (32,719 MT), Sangrur (34,299 MT) and Ropar (1,855 MT) continued to lead in procurement on Friday.“Procurement is gradually picking up and there is a deliberate attempt to make the farmers come in staggered way to avoid crowds due to the Covid-19 crisis. The passes for farmers have been issued in a way that there is no overcrowding and the stock received is procured on the same day unless there is some discrepancy in terms of the moisture content,” said an official involved with the procurement process.The procurement exercise began a fortnight late this time on April 15 and it will go on till June 15. The state government has not ruled out extending the deadline further to ensure that the entire stock of wheat of every farmer is procured. The farmers, however, have been demanding that the procurement should not be in lots of one coupon per trolley but the entire produce of a farmer should be procured at one go.The procurement agencies as well as the FCI are procuring wheat at the fixed MSP of Rs 1,925.