ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) has so far procured about 730,000 tons of wheat during its procurement campaign of the commodity for the year 2012-13.
The corporation was assigned by the Economic Coordination Committee of Cabinet (ECC) to procure 2 million tons of wheat to maintain strategic food reserves as well as for export, said General Manager Marketing PASSCO, Col (Retd) Tanveer Hussain.
Talking to APP here on Monday he said that the corporation has provided about 940,000 bags for growers to sell their produce at official fixed rates of Rs.1050 per 40 kg.
The corporation has established 222 procurement centers across the Punjab and Sindh provinces where as the Punjab province was divided in nine zones and Sindh in one zone to facilitate the growers for selling their out put at their door steps, he added.
Col (R) Tanver said that wheat procurement centers in 15 tehsils of Punjab and in two tehsils of Sindh were operating to procure the grain from the growers as the campaign was in full swing in these centers.
This year about 7.7 million tons of wheat will be procured to fulfill the domestic requirements as well as keeping the strategic reserves and export to Iran, Afghanistan and other regional markets, he added.
He further said about eight bags per acre would be provided to the growers on showing the land revenue records to keep transparency during the campaign.
The PASSCO was striving to provide more bags for the growers having less than 10 acre land without further inquiry to sell their produces.
The GM PSSCO further informed that the corporation was also providing Rs. 7 per 40 kg handling charges to growers as per the directives of the government and added that the procurement campaign is scheduled to continue till June 15.
It may be recalled that wheat crop was set a cultivation target of over 22.7 million acre across the country to produce 25 million tons to fulfill the domestic consumptions as well as to export.
In Punjab, it was cultivated over 16 million acre as against the set target of 16.95 million acre to produce 19.2 million tons, in Sindh 2.5 million acre against the fixed targets of 2.7 million acre to get out-put of 3.2 million tons.
In Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa wheat was cultivated over 0.6 million acre and 1.78 million acre respectively as against the set targets of 0.8 and 1.5 million acre respectively.
In Balochistan and KP the crop out put was fixed at 0.8 million and sown over 1.5 million tons for the period under review.
The total wheat output across the glob is expected to remain 665-670 million tons as against it consumption of 680 million tons globally.
When contacted the Ministry of Food Security and Research, no official was available for their comments regarding procurement of wheat in the country.
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