The wheat procurement campaign for the year 2012-13 will formally be launched from April 20 in the wheat producing areas of Punjab province. An official in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research told APP on Wednesday that food departments of the provinces and other allied institutions have finalised the arrangements for conducting the operation.
He said wheat harvesting season in the Punjab province is expected to formally start from April 15 and will continue for the next two-month. In Punjab, it was cultivated over 16 million acre as against the set target of 16.95 million acre to produce 19.2 million tons of wheat, in Sindh 2.5 million acre against the fixed targets of 2.7 million acre to get out-put of 3.2 million tons, he added.The harvesting has been started in some areas of Sindh province adding that the process will get momentum in the rest of crop producing areas of the country as currently moisture was observed in fields of standing crop, he remarked.
The government has set the targets to procure about 7.72 million tons of wheat during the wheat procurement campaign for the year 2012-13 to fulfil the domestic requirements as well as to export, he added. In this regard, he said Punjab has assign the target to procure about 1.30 million ton of the commodity while the Sindh has given the task to purchase about 1.325 million tons of wheat at official fixed rate of Rs 1050 per 40 kilograms.
Meanwhile, Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and Balochistan has set to procure about 0.325 million and 0.100 respectively during the current wheat procurement campaign for keeping the strategic reserves as well, he added. He further said the Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) will also procure about 2.00 million ton of wheat across the country.
In this regard, he commented that Passco has established 220 centers in 11 zones across the country to start its wheat procurement campaign for the year 2012-13. All the logistic arrangements have been finalised to procure about 2 million tons of wheat to fulfil the domestic requirements as well as keeping the strategic stocks and export, he added.
The corporation has divided the country in 11 zones and established 220 centers, adding that Punjab was divided into nine zones, while Sindh and Balochistan both are considered as single zone separately. For the wheat procurement operation, he said Passco has arranged 15 million jot bags for the growers to facilitating them to sell their out-put at official fixed cost of Rs 1050 per 40 kg. He further said that about eight bags per acre would be provided to the growers on showing the land revenue records to keep transparency during the campaign.
The Passco was striving to provide more bags for the growers having less then 10 acre land without further inquiry to sell their produces. He argued that the total wheat out-put across the glob is expected to remain 665-670 million tons as against it consumption of 680 million tons globally.