Chandigarh, July 29 -- With barely two months left for the commencement of paddy procurement, Punjab has sounded an alarm over an unprecedented foodgrain storage crisis, prompting chief minister Bhagwant Mann to seek an urgent audience with Union food and public distribution minister Pralhad Joshi.

Mann has written to the Union minister requesting immediate intervention to ensure large-scale evacuation of foodgrain stocks from Punjab, warning that the state's procurement operations could face severe disruption if storage space is not created before the arrival of the new kharif crop from October 1. A response from the Centre is still awaited.

The concern stems from an alarming mismatch between Punjab's storage capacity and the foodgrain...