ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) has so far procured about 700,000 metric tonne of wheat during the current procurement campaign across the grain-producing areas of the country.
The Corporation had been assigned a task to procure about 900,000 metric tonne of the wheat during crop season 2017-18 in order to fulfill the domestic requirements of the staple foods as well as to keep the strategic food reserves of the country, said an official of PASSCO.
He said that about 572,000 metric tonne of wheat procured from the Punjab as the government has established 205 procurement centers across the province in order to facilitate the growers to sell their produces at official fixed rates, he added.
Meanwhile, he said that during the current campaign so far about 95,000 metric tonne of the commodity was procured from the Sindh province as 15 procurement centers were also established there to save the farmers from the exploitation of the middleman and providing them the proper price of their output. About 33,000 metric tonne of the wheat were procured from the Balochistan Province where 8 centers were established to procure the commodity, he added.
In order to smooth and transparent distribution of sacks, the corporation in collaboration with provincial land revenue departments had conducted field survey and remove the bogus registration of about 2.5 million acres of land.
He said so far about 850,000 metric tonne of sacks (8.50) million bags were distributed among farmers with the help of land revenue department and sacks distribution was still in progress for facilitating them to pack and store their output in a suitable environment.
In Punjab about 716,000 metric tonne of sacks (7.16) million were distributed, where as small scale growers were on the top priority of the distribution list, he added.
Meanwhile, in Sindh about 110,000 metric tonne of sacks (1.10) million have been distributed and 34,000 metric tonne of bags (0.320) million were provided to farmers of Balochistan, he added.
