Punjab Food Department has sent a summary to the Chief Minister Punjab seeking approval for reviving one of its redundant grain storage facility situated at Multan. Sources in the provincial food department said that the Multan grain storage facility has a capacity of 40,000 metric tons and with repair and maintenance can add to the present storage capacity.
The department is already working hard to enhance its storage capacity and had been issued Rs 230 million for setting up state of the art concrete silos at Dera Ghazi Khan and other places for the current fiscal by the provincial government, sources added. Storage facility at Multan was built with the assistance of USAID but was not in use for the last 10 years due to certain reasons. During a recent visit high ups of the department decided to revive it.
The department has approached the Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) to assist it in revival of this silo, which would add to the present storage capacity of the department. Passco has the technical know how on repair, maintenance and revival of such storages, the sources claimed.'PC-I of this project has been prepared and a summary is moved for approval from the provincial government including financial assistance. We can also use amount allocated for Dera Ghazi Khan silo as Multan silo could be revived in six months time and create additional storage for the department,' sources added.
Meanwhile the work on setting up new silos is also continued. The provincial government in the budget 2011-12 allocated a sum of Rs 230 million for setting up state of the art concrete silos at Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur and Lahore adding another 100,000 metric tons to the total storage capacity.