Sindh govt starts wheat procurement, establishes centres: food department

SUKKUR: The Sindh government has started wheat procurement and established 31 centres besides imposing a ban on selling and purchasing of wheat from Sukkur by other districts, officials of the provincial food department said Monday.

The food department has established 31 centres to start procurement of wheat. The centres were established in Rohri, Salehpur, Pannu Aqil, Kandhara, Arain Mubarakpur and other areas.

The provincial authorities have also banned the trade of wheat in other districts from Sukkur besides cancelling licences of traders.

Earlier in March, an official in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research told state news agency APP that the procurement campaign in Sindh will start from March 15, whereas in Punjab it will start by next month.

Read: Sindh cabinet approves to procure 1.4mn tons of wheat

He said that Sindh would procure about 1.4 million tonnes of wheat and it had also established 517 procurement centres in order to facilitate the farmers to sell their produces on official fixed rates on their nearest centre.

The sack distribution among the growers to be started by March 15 all across the crop growing areas of Sindh Province, he said adding that besides the provincial food department, Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation would also establish its procurement centres to facilitate the growers.

Read: Committee formed to probe wheat crisis begins its working in Sindh

He said that PASSCO would procure about 1.8 million tonnes of wheat from the four provinces and in this regard it had also established its 233 wheat procurement centres, adding that in Sindh it had established 17 centres, in Punjab 204 and 12 procurement centres had been established in Balochistan.

He informed that Punjab would procure about 4.5 million tonnes of wheat, Sindh 1.4 million tonnes, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) 0.4 million tonnes and Balochistan 0.1 million tonnes during the wheat procurement drive for the year 2019-20.

It is worth mentioning here that Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security and Research in its last meeting had recommended fixing minimum wheat support price at Rs1,400 per 40 kg for ensuring a better return to local farmers and encouraging them to grow additional wheat to cater its increasing demand.