Wheat buying target set at 8.25 million tons

ISLAMABAD: The government on Thursday fixed 8.25 million tons of wheat procurement target for the current crop at a revised-up price of Rs1,400 per 40 kilograms.

The decision was taken during a meeting presided over by Minister for National Food Security and Research Khusro Bakhtyar via video link regarding arrangements made for the wheat procurement. “There is sufficient supply of wheat / flour in the country and government is also going to procure heavily in this season,” Bakhtyar said. “There is no need to panic as satisfactory reports have been given by respected food ministers and representatives of food departments regarding supply of flour / wheat in all provinces.”

Secretary food ministry, provincial ministers for agriculture of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) Managing Director and secretaries of food departments of Punjab, Sindh and Kyber Pakhtunkhwa attended the meeting.

The meeting set wheat procurement target at 1.8 million tons for Passco, 4.5 million tons (Punjab), 1.4 million tons (Sindh), 1 million tons (Balochistan) and 0.45 million tons (Kyhbyer Pakhtunkhwa). The meeting approved the minimum support price at Rs1,400/40 kg. It was told that 1,162 wheat purchase centres have been established throughout the country and district administration in all provinces were ordered to take strong legal action in order to curb the hoarding.

All the participants were unanimous that procurement of wheat by feed millers and non-players like rice mills and ginners should be disallowed.

Food minister directed the officials to devise daily or weekly monitoring procedures to evaluate procurement targets. He also advised them to follow directions given by the Economic Coordination Committee related to intra-provincial agreements defining the quantity and price of the wheat crop to ensure rationalisation of cost-sharing by all the provinces.

It was decided that Punjab and Sindh administrations would start public procurement from 25th March, 2020 subject to weather conditions. The procurement is to be done on first come first serve principle. It was decided to conduct another meeting in the first week of April to review arrangements made by all provinces, to assure their procurement position. It was also suggested to restrict intra-district movement of wheat crop and to ban private sector from procurement until the public sector procurement target is achieved.

Government last week revised up wheat support price by Rs35 to Rs1,400 per 40kg to ensure parity in the commodity prices in the country and set up a monitoring body to ensure smooth procurement in the upcoming harvest season.

The wheat procurement monitoring group would ensure that the allied issues related to incidental charges, supply of adequate gunny bags to farmers and wheat procurement by provinces and the private sector as per plan and targets are properly streamlined and addressed to provide a level-playing field to all the stakeholders, including the public.