Passco procures 0.7MMT of wheat

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) has so far procured around 0.7 million metric tons of wheat during the current procurement campaign across the grain-producing areas of the country.

The corporation had been assigned a task to procure around 900,000 metric tons of wheat during the crop season 2017/18 in order to fulfill the domestic requirements of the staple food and to keep the strategic food reserves of the country, an official of Passco told APP on Monday.

Around 572,000 metric tons of wheat has been procured from Punjab, as the government has established 205 procurement centres across the province in order to facilitate the growers sell their produces at official fixed rates, he added.

Meanwhile, the official said, during the current campaign, so far around 95,000 metric tons of the commodity has been procured from Sindh, as 15 procurement centres have been established there to save the farmers from the exploitation of the middleman and providing them the proper price of their output.

Around 33,000 metric tons of wheat has been procured from Balochistan where eight centres have been established to procure the commodity, he added.

In order to distribute wheat sacks smoothly and in a transparent manner, the corporation in collaboration with the provincial land revenue departments had conducted field survey and remove the bogus registration of around 2.5 million acres of land.

He said so far around 850,000 metric tons of sacks were distributed among the farmers with the help of the land revenue department and sacks distribution is still in progress for facilitating them to pack and store their output in a suitable environment.

In Punjab, around 716,000 metric tons of sacks were distributed, whereas small-scale growers are on the top priority of the distribution list, he added.

Meanwhile, in Sindh around 110,000 metric tons of sacks have been distributed
and 34,000 metric tons of bags have been provided to the farmers of Balochistan, he added.