Zehri reviews wheat procurement drive

Federal Minister for Food & Agriculture, Mir Israrullah Zehri visited the headquarters of the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco), here on Saturday. The minister was briefed by the Managing Director Passco Major General Sohail Shafqat about the arrangements being made by the corporation to procure 1.3 million tons of wheat in the forthcoming wheat procurement drive as assigned by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (Minfa).
All the General Managers were also present. The minister was briefed about procurement strategy made by the General Manager (Field) Colonel Tanvir Mayo (Retd) to facilitate the farmers. The minister asked the Passco administration to devise a transparent system for the procurement of wheat across Pakistan. He also stressed the need for setting up of complaint cells at procurement centers, Passco head office and at the Ministry. He said that the federal government would ensure a transparent and just wheat procurement to encourage the farming community. There is no doubt that because of farmers' efforts they had bumper wheat crops in the country.
Briefing the newsmen prior to this meeting, MD Passco Major General, Sohail Shafqat said that the coming wheat procurement drive would be focused on facilitating the small farmers. He said that 201 purchasing centers had been established in 15 tehsils of Punjab and 3 tehsils of Sindh. He said that his team had tried its best to facilitate farmers.
He said that the corporation would issue 8 gunny bags per acre during the drive and one farmer would be issued almost 200 gunny bags. He said that the farmer had to show fard and gardawari of his land to prove his eligibility for getting bardana and these documents would be verified from the revenue department. He said that monitoring teams of department and at purchasing centers had been constituted to make the procurement transparent. "The corporation needs around Rs 35 billion to meet the procurement target of 1.3 million tons and same had been arranged through a consortium of banks,' he added.
Regarding export of wheat, he said the corporation had been given green signal for export of wheat around two days ago and it was in negotiation with importers from Bangladesh, Oman, Egypt and Afghanistan to dispose off the present stock to make more room for new stock in the storage and to generate revenue for retiring the loan and new procurement.