ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) and Provincial Food Department Punjab have established over 500 wheat procurement centers for purchasing wheat during the current procurement campaign as wheat would start arriving in these centers by May 1.
All logistics and commercial arrangements have been finalized to kick off the wheat procurement campaign for the current season and sofar 12 percent of sack distribution has been completed, said General Manager Commercial PASSCO, Colonel (r) Tanveer Hussain.
Talking to APP on Tuesday, he said that wheat procurement has been started in Sindh and Balochistan Provinces where as distribution of sacks for growers in Punjab has been initiated from April 25.
From May 1, he said, that the wheat would start arriving in centers of PASSCO and others by established by the Punjab government which would help growers to sell their produces at official fixed rates.
PASSCO has arrange about 8 million bags for the packing of over 800,000 tons of grains and it has set a target to distribute 70 percent of sacks in first 15 days of procurement campaign, he added.
GM PASSCO informed that procurement was started by the last week of current month and the Corporation has established its centers in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan provinces to facilitate the growers to sell their produces on official fixed rates.
He said that out of the total sacks, 92 percent would be provided for growers in Punajb and the remaining would be distributed in Sindh and Balochistan to facilitate the growers.
He informed that the government has so far assigned PASSCO to procure about 800,000 tons of wheat during current harvesting season to facilitate the farmers particularly small scale growers.
According to the procurement policy, the corporation would provide 8 bags per acre for small farmers to procure 20 maund per acres on first come and first serve basis, he added.
He further informed that PASSCO will fulfill the 100 percent bags requirements of small farmers from saving them the exploitation of middle man and safeguarding the interest of farmers in the country.
Upto 25 acres, he said that the farmers would be provided 200 bags in first stage to sell their produces on official fixed rate of Rs. 1300 per 40 kg.
Tanveer Hussain said that all provinces procure the grains as according to their annual demand and consumptions where as only PASSCO kept about 1 million tons as the national strategic reserves.
Besides, he said that financial arrangements were also finalized and the farmers would be paid with in three days on the return of bags with their security deposited for bags.
He further said that wheat output was quite healthy as reported by the field and PASSCO will achieve its assigned targets of procurement for the current season and provide every possible facility to farmers in the country.
Meanwhile, an official of Ministry of National Food Security and Research said that government would procure about 6.6 million tons of wheat during the current harvesting season to fulfill the staple food requirements.
He said that country was expecting to harvest bumper wheat crop of over 26 million tons during the current season as harvesting has been started in Sindh, Punjab and other provinces including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
The government has decided to procure about 6.6 million tons of grains to fulfill the domestic requirements as well as to keep the strategic reserves for food security purposes and exports.
He said that Punjab Province has given the task to procure 4.5 million tons of wheat across the wheat producing areas at official fixed rates to facilitate the growers particularly small scale growers.
Besides, about 0.9 million tons of wheat would be procured from Sindh and 0.3 million tons from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces respectively during the current procurement campaign, he added.
He further informed that about 100,000 tons of wheat to be procured from Balochistan where as Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation has assigned the task for procuring about 800,000 tons of wheat from across the four provinces.
To a question, he said that considering the surplus reserves with the provinces, the provinces seek the permission of federal government for exports as government had earlier allowed the Punjab and Sindh to export their surplus stocks.
It may be recalled here that government had set a target to cultivate wheat crop of over 9,810 thousand hectares during the crop season 2014-15 to produce 26 million tons as compared to last year's output of 25 million tons.
Wheat cultivation targets for the Punjab Province were fixed at 6,600 thousand hectares, Sindh cultivation targets at 1,150 thousand hectares, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at 760 thousand hectares and Balochistan's crop cultivation targets fixed at 400 thousand hectares.
Comments
Comments are closed.