Food department and Passco start wheat procurement in Punjab

Punjab Food Department and Pakistan Agricultural Storage & Services Corporation (Passco) on Saturday began the procurement of wheat in the Punjab province.
Both the organisations have plans to procure a total of 4.72 million tonnes of wheat from the province this year.
Of this quantity, Punjab Food Department will procure 3.5 million tonnes of wheat, followed by Passco with a target of 1.22 million tonnes.
The food department had set up 308 wheat procurement centres across the Punjab province.
There will be no restriction on the inter-district movement of the wheat in the Punjab province and the presence of more than one buyer in the market is likely to keep the prices stable. Meanwhile, Passco will procure 1.22 million tonnes of wheat from 15 districts (44 tehsils) of the Punjab province.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has provided a credit line of Rs 22 billion at the very reasonable mark-up rate of 1.74 percent to help this federal body procure wheat from the provinces of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan.