LAHORE: The Pakistan Agricultural Services and Supplies Corporation (PASSCO) may not be able to meet its procurement targets in Sindh & Balochistan during the ongoing wheat procurement drive, owing to difference in the support price announced by the federal government and the provincial governments.

“We have set up 233 procurement centers in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan to meet the target of procuring 1.2 million tons of wheat during the season 2021. Nevertheless, it seemed that differential between the wheat support price announced by Sindh and the Federal government may hit our procurement in Sindh,” said PASSCO GM (Field) Major Muzahir Iqbal (r) while talking to Business Recorder here on Saturday.

He said that perhaps we might not buy anything from Sindh and Balochistan because of this differential. Collectively, the Corporation was eyeing to buy 150,000 metric tons of wheat from both these provinces, he added.

While in Punjab, the corporation has so far procured 100,000 metric tons of wheat since the official launch of procurement drive from April 15, 2021.

He said that procurement is going fine in Punjab. Prices are a bit higher in the market here too but these are very early days and as soon as supplies increase, it may drop.

He was hopeful that they would meet their target of buying from Punjab. Regarding gunny bags distribution, he said that they had so far distributed gunny bags equal to packaging of 225,000 metric tons of grain.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021