The Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) has asked the Federal government to help it arranging the additional Rs 14 billion to buy the 0.5 million tons of wheat, which has recently been added to its procurement target by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
Sources in the Corporation told Business Recorder here on Monday that the initial target of procurement was 1.5 million tons, which was later increased to 2 million tons due to availability of wheat and it was again increased recently to 2.5 million tons. The sources said that to procure two million tons of wheat they were in need of about Rs 54 billion.
Till Sunday, the Corporation had procured 19,56,000 metric tons of wheat. For this procurement, the corporation had to pay over Rs 46.6 billion to the growers and it had distributed Rs 45.182 billion.
For the rest of the amount and the amount needed for procurement of two million tons of wheat, the Corporation was negotiating with the Askari Bank and other commercial banks and hopes to get it soon. The sources said that they were short of Rs 7 billion till Saturday (out of the amount to be paid to the growers for wheat procured till that day) when it released Rs 5.78 billion to the growers through various banks, the sources added.
The sources said that the Secretary Ministry of Food and Agriculture (Minfa) Zia-ur-Rehman held a meeting with the Passco officials in its head office on Saturday, where the Corporation informed him about the requirement of additional money. The Secretary had assured to take up the issue with the quarters concerned, the sources claimed.