ISLAMABAD In order to maintain the strategic reserves of staple food as well as to facilitate the growers to sell their produces on official fixed rates, the government has decided to start early wheat procurement campaign for the crop season 2019-20. The procurement campaign in Sindh Province will start from March 5 as wheat crop harvesting has been stared in lower Sindh, said Food Security Commissioner Dr Imtiaz Ali Gopang. Talking to APP on Friday, he said that wheat procurement drive in Punjab, the largest grain producing province, will start from April 5 with an aim to facilitate the growers particularly small scale growers. The Economic Coordination Coordination (ECC) of Cabinet in its recent meeting had accorded the approval for procuring 8.25 million tons wheat during current procurement campaign, he added. The Provincial Government of Punjab had been tasked to procure 4.5 million tons of grains in order to fulfill the domestic requirements as well as keeping strategic reserves of food grains, he added. Meanwhile, he said that the Sindh Government had been assigned to procure 1.40 million tons of wheat and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to procure 0.10 million tons of grains during current procurement drive. The provinces were assigned procurements tasks after due deliberations and their food departments had agreed to procure assigned targets in order to fulfill their consumption needs, he added.—APP
