The Sindh government has procured 250,000 metric tons of wheat in the first month of the procurement season, officials in Food Department told Business Recorder on Thursday. They said that procurement was in full swing and the target of 1.2 million metric tons set by the federal government would be achieved before June 2009.
Such huge wheat procurement in only one-month has never been done in the history of province, they said and added that wheat procurement in Sukkur and Larkana regions started from March 16, 2009. The officials said that 339 wheat procurement centers were buying the commodity directly from the growers and paying them money on the spot.
They said the federal government had set a target of wheat procurement at 6.5 million tons, of which Sindh province would share 1.2 million metric tons. They said that the matter of raising wheat issue price had also been resolved at par with the federal governments directives, which now stood at Rs 950 against Rs 750 per 40-kg. Now, the role of middlemen has been completely removed due to increase of issue price, they added.
In Sindh, they say the commodity has been sown on 2.571 million acres land as against 2.2 million acres last year. To a question, the officials said that the procurement of commodity would continue till end of May, and hoped that the target would be achieved easily.