Our Correspondents
Bahawalpur/Multan
Punjab Minister for Food Abdul Aleem Khan Friday paid a surprise visit to wheat procurement centres of Dera Bakha and Bani Shell.
He inspected the wheat procurement process and talked to the farmers about the facilities being provided at the centres. He also checked the ratio of moisture in the wheat and expressed satisfaction. The senior minister was told that the target of procuring 317,461 metric ton wheat has been set for Bahawalpur district out of which 102,504 metric ton wheat has been procured so far.
He said that the provincial food department, after achieving its wheat procurement target, would provide wheat to other provinces also. The target of procuring 0.85 million metric ton wheat has been set for Bahawalpur Division.
He told that per acre production has been 25 per cent more than expectation therefore, it was likely to increase the wheat procurement target. He said that every grain of wheat will be bought from farmers and they will be paid for their product. District Food Controller (DFC) Malik Mumtaz said that they had issued seven lacs gunny bags for procurement of wheat, which is 40.8 percent of the total wheat procurement target so far across the district. While talking to APP here on Friday, Malik Imtiaz said that growers started to bring the wheat at procurement centres adding that they had also procured about 334,000 wheat bags from growers which is 15.8 percent of the total wheat target.
He said that 200 to 300 gunny bags were being provided to growers under the open door policy. He said that centre in-charges are authorised to provide 500 gunny bags each grower while DFC could issue 1000 gunny bags.
He said that the wheat procurement target for Multan district was set 200,000 metric ton and hoped that they would chase the target by end of May.
