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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Punjab likely to miss wheat procurement target

By Munawar Hasan
May 26, 2018


LAHORE: Punjab province is likely to miss wheat procurement target as it bought only 77 percent of the intended or targeted volume so far, while unavailability of gunny bags could also lead to supply issues down the line, industry officials said on Friday.

“Keeping this in view, the provincial food department may only be able to purchase around 3.5 million tons of wheat against a target of 3.81 million tons,” a source familiar with the matter told The News.

As per figures available with The News, the food department procured 2.94 million tons of wheat till May 24.

The source disclosed that procurement target had been set on the base of eight bags/acre quota. “The department has issued gunny bags till Thursday (May 24) for the purchase of 3.47 million tons of wheat, which is 91 percent of the target,” the source revealed.

Officials said the pace of buying was slow especially if compared with the harvesting of crop, completed about a fortnight back in almost entire province. “Mostly middle men are getting benefits of procurement drive,” an official said.

The official said the department was facing allegations of being unable to properly communicate to the farmers about the submission of applications for wheat selling. “Due to this slackness on the part of the department many farmers could not submit application within stipulated time,” he said alleging the department did not publicise the wheat policy clearly.

As per wheat procurement policy 2018-19, the provincial government decided to start the wheat procurement campaign throughout Punjab from 16th April, 2018. The first phase of the drive essentially focused on receiving applications from growers at 382 procurement centers set up in the province. Farmers have to submit the applications of bardana (gunny sacks) along with copy of computerised national identity card (CNIC) and contact number of the applicant.

Under the stage-II of the wheat procurement campaign, scrutiny of applications was done while issuance of procurement following approval from the provincial government initiated from April 24, 2018. This process continued for a month and no new application was being entertained nor gunny bags are being issued to anyone.

Sources asserted that food department delayed commencement of wheat purchase unnecessarily, leaving farmers in the lurch. “Moreover, many farmers prefer to sell wheat in the open market due to early maturity of wheat this year owing to an unusually hot summer season,” a source said.

In district like Rahim Yar Khan, the source said, the food department would not be able to buy wheat as per target as most of the farmers had already sold wheat in the open market at a throwaway price.

Another official lamented that growers had suffered a lot this year due to change in official wheat procurement policy. “Owing to failure of the provincial government in commencing wheat procurement campaign in view of early harvest, the growers were forced to sell their produce at throwaway price to powerful middle-men and flour millers,” the official said.

The official alleged that reluctance of the Punjab food department somehow gave an absolute monopoly to private buyers, leading to free fall of wheat price being offered to farmers. “The lack of second buying party proved a serious blow to farmers as price of new wheat started sliding below Rs1,100/ 40kg mark in southern Punjab against the official support price of Rs1,300,” the source said.

This year wheat harvesting began about two weeks earlier because of changing weather pattern but the food department was not prepared to start procurement accordingly.