Farmers’ interests to be protected, says Shahbaz

LAHORE: Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has said that with the grace of Almighty Allah, there has been a bumper wheat crop this year and the interests of farmers will be safeguarded like the previous years and payments to them for their produce at the fixed rate will be ensured.
All necessary measures will be taken for stabilising wheat price and it will be ensured that farmers are not affected by the low price of wheat and slump in the international market.He was addressing a high-level meeting here Tuesday which reviewed various proposals regarding wheat procurement campaign for the year 2015-16.
Addressing the meeting, the chief minister said wheat procurement campaign would be launched at the end of April in Punjab and gunny bags would be distributed among the cultivators in accordance with the settled policy.
He said the system of distribution of gunny bags would be just and highly transparent and gunny bags would be issued on the basis of ‘first come first served’. He said middleman and ‘Arhtis’ would not be allowed to involve in the wheat procurement campaign and exploit cultivators. He said all necessary facilities would be provided to cultivators at the procurement centres. He said complaint cells would be established at provincial, divisional, district and tehsil levels and the complaints of the cultivators would be addressed immediately. He directed Provincial Minister for Food Bilal Yasin and Secretary Food to publicise their phone numbers so that farmers could contact them directly in case of any problem.
He said information technology should be fully utilised in the procurement of wheat from cultivators while citizen feedback system should be introduced for resolving the farmers’ problems. He said a modern system should be evolved for effective monitoring of wheat procurement campaign.
Shahbaz Sharif directed that wheat should be procured from small cultivators on priority basis. He said he would personally monitor wheat procurement campaign while provincial ministers and secretaries would remain in the field for supervising procurement process. Assembly members gave various proposals regarding wheat procurement campaign while Secretary Food gave a briefing on the arrangements made in this regard.