LAHORE: The Punjab food department has decided to withdraw from its practice of wheat procurement, sources said on Saturday.

They further said that a new policy has been devised over the matter and it will become a law and with that the food department’s role in wheat procurement will come to an end.

Sources said that in new policy the private sector will purchase wheat crop from farmers, directly. “The government will fix the wheat price in view of the international prices of the commodity,” sources said. All four provinces of the country will fix unanimous rate of wheat crop, sources said.

It has been hinted that the new experiment will be conducted for two years.

This will end the burden of billions of rupees in interest and storage expenditures for the government.

Sources said that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also demanded the provinces to bring their expenses down. The food department bears a burden of Rs400 billion in a year in this respect, sources added.

Punjab’s Finance Minister Mujtaba Shuja ur Rehman on Thursday said that the farmers have sold almost all their wheat crop to middlemen.

He said that the federal government had purchased 3.2 million metric tonnes of wheat in the caretaker setup. “We still have 2.3mn metric tonnes of wheat in store,” minister said.

He claimed the government’s decision didn’t harm the farmer as they have already sold their entire crop to the middlemen.

“The wheat’s rate has also not drastically dropped and sold at 3,200 to 3,300 rupees per maund,” provincial minister said. “This rate didn’t harm the farmer but definitely their profit has dropped,” finance minister said.