Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has announced that the wheat procurement campaign 2015 will be launched at the end of April in the province and gunny bags will be distributed among growers in accordance with the settled policy.
The revelation surfaced in a top level meeting the chief minister himself chaired on Tuesday. The meeting reviewed various proposals on the campaign.
He said, "There has been a bumper wheat crop this year with the grace of Almighty Allah and farmers' interests will be safeguarded like the previous years and payments will be made to them for their produce at the fixed rate. All necessary measures will be taken to stabilise the wheat prices and it will also be ensured that the farmers are unaffected by the low wheat prices and slump in the international market."
He told the meeting, "The system of distribution of jute bags will be just and highly transparent and jute bags will be issued on the basis of 'first come, first served'. The middleman and 'Arhtis' will never be allowed to get involved in the wheat procurement campaign and exploit cultivators."
He also talked about complaint cells to be established at provincial, divisional, district and tehsil levels and these cells would hear cultivators' complaints.
He then told Provincial Minister for Food Bilal Yasin and the food secretary to publicise their phone numbers so that farmers could contact them directly in case of any problem. He suggested that Information Technology be fully used in the procurement of wheat from the cultivators while the citizen feedback system is introduced to resolve the farmers' problems. He said a modern system should be evolved for the effective monitoring of the campaign.
He expected that wheat be procured from small cultivators on priority basis, saying he would personally monitor the campaign while provincial ministers and secretaries would remain in the field to supervise the procurement process.
Assembly members gave various proposals on the campaign while the food secretary gave a briefing on the arrangements.
Those also attending were Provincial Ministers Bilal Yasin, Muhammad Shafiq, Iqbal Channer, Federal Parliamentary Secretary Food Security Rajab Ali Khan Baloch, Special Assistant Arshad Jutt, Member of the Provincial Assembly Rana Sanaullah, members of the provincial and national assemblies and the chief secretary.
Comments
Comments are closed.