Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) has convened a two-day conference of its all zonal heads in Lahore on March 24-25 to discuss the wheat procurement policy 2009 and finalise the procurement arrangements.
Passco sources told Business Recorder that all its 15 zonal heads would meet at the Corporations head office where the General Manager (Field) would brief them about the details of procurement policy while the zonal heads would apprise the high-ups of the arrangements they have made for making the procurement farmers friendly and transparent.
They said that besides this, the zonal heads would also give lists of branches of the Banks attached with their centers so as to ensure payment to the farmers within twenty-four hours of procurement. They said that the Corporation had a target of procurement of 1.5 million tons of wheat out of which 1.44 million tons would be purchased from the farmers of Punjab, 50,000 tons from Sindh and 10,000 tons from Balochistan.
To facilitate the farmers, the Corporation had set up around 260 centers in the fifteen tehsils of Punjab and areas allocated to it in Sindh and Balochistan. In Punjab the Corporation would procure grain from Hafizabad, Pindi Bhattian, Okara, Pak Pattan, Minchanabad, Bahawalnagar, Burewala, Mailsi, Kehror Pakka, Lodhran, Mian Chunnu, Alipur Jatoi, Layyah, Gojra and Khanpur.