Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Sikandar Hayyat Bosan directs Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) to make its wheat procurement policy 2014 farmer-friendly and eliminate the role of patwari from the process for facilitating the growers.
These observations were made by him during a meeting of Standing Committee on National Food Security and Research held at Passco Head Office Tuesday, headed by Chairman National Assembly Standing Committee MNA Malik Shakir Bashir Awan. Sources privy to meeting said the committee and the minister called upon the administration of the federal procurement agency that the policy of eight bags per acre should be revised and 16 bags per acre should be provided to the small farmers besides increasing the number of centres.
Members of the Standing Committee who were present on this occasion included Dr Hafiz-ur-Rehman Khan Drishak, Mir Dostain Domki, Rao Muhammad Ajmal Khan, Ms Shahnaz Saleem, Abdul Sattar Bachani, Faqir Sher Muhammad Bilalani, Junaid Akbar, Ms Romina Khurshid Alam, Chaudhry Nazeer Ahmed, Chaudhry Iftikhar Nazir, Tahir Iqbal Chaudhry, Syed Iftikhar-ul-Hasan and Muhammad Salman Khan Baloch. Director General Seed Certification and Registration Department Syed Nasir Ali Shah and Passco high command also attended the meeting, sources claimed.
The Committee Members during the discussion raised issues like providing maximum wheat bags to the small farmers, increasing number of centres, ensuring transparency in procurement, not getting additional 2- or 3-kg per bag wheat and ensuring payment within a week.
Meanwhile, according to a press release issued by the Passco, its Acting MD apprised the committee that main purpose of establishing Passco is to facilitate the Federal Government in its quest to ensure National Food Security in order to maintain strategic reserve of different food grains commodities providing the same to deficit provinces including armed forces and to maintain international food bank on behalf of Federal Government.
Passco is being governed by Board of Directors which is headed by Federal Secretary, National Food Security and Research. The 25 percent shares are held by the Federal Government while remaining shares are divided among 06 different banks. The total wheat procurement target for 2014 is 1,600,000 tonnes. Passco has been assigned the task of procuring wheat to maintain national reserve stock of one million tons.
The wheat purchase price is Rs 1,200/40-kg with security of gunny bags and PP bags at rupees 133 and Rs 37 per bag, respectively. The total savings made by PASSCO is about Rs 311.7 million for FY 2013-14 under different heads. Passco is distributed into 12 zones and 218 purchase centres with 33 projects all over the country. MD during the discussion also explained that employees of the Passco are not the civil servants and are not entitled to benefits of gratuity or pension, if this concern of the Passco employees is addressed, this will help in increasing the efficiency of the corporation as well as employees.
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