FAISALABAD – The provincial government has set a purchase target of 3.5 million metric tons of wheat from the farmers this year, said Punjab Food Secretary Irafan Elahi during his visit to Faisalabad.
“All the arrangements have been finalised to start the wheat procurement campaign from April 20,” he announced. The food secretary said the government purchase price for 40 kilograms of wheat was Rs 950. He confirmed the food department had completed the preparations to arrange Bardana (jute bags and PP bags) for onward distribution to the farmers.
He was speaking to the senior city government officials, including Divisional Commissioner Syed Tahir Hussain, Faisalabad DCO Nasim Sadiq, Toba Tek Singh DCO Aman Ullah Khan, Jhang DCO Shahid Niaz, Deputy Director Food Rao Mohammad Tauheed and deputy district officers revenue, district food controllers and other food department officials.
“To ensure a transparent procurement operation, a high-level provincial monitoring committee, headed by Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa, has been set up,” disclosed Irfan Elahi. The food secretary announced that distribution of packaging material (bardana) to the farmers would be completed by April 18 to avoid inconvenience.
He disclosed that a total of 37 procurement centres had been set up across the division that would collect a total of 4.4 million metric tons of wheat during the whole season. “To facilitate the procurement operation at these centres, government officials from various departments, including agriculture, market committee, revenue and police, will be deputed to ensure smooth transactions,” Irfan Elahi said and added monitoring committees comprising local MPAs, lumberdars and representatives from farmer organizations would be set up to tackle the problems arising during the operation.
He directed all the DCOs to finalise all necessary arrangements at each procurement centre by April 15 to avoid long queues of the farmers at the centres. The farmers have their own side of the story based on their last year’s experiences of getting bardana. “The problem is that only those farmers can bring their wheat stock at procurement centres who are issued bardana from these outlets,” said a farmer.
“A lot of time is wasted in the formalities while it is a peak time for the farmers to dispose of their harvest. Another problem is that the bardana is issued to the landowners only. So every body from a particular farming family has to go to the centre to get his quota of bardana which is quite tedious for them. A lot of landless farmers who fail to get bardana have to dispose of their yield at the throw-away price offered by middlemen.”
Last year, a provincial minister came to visit the procurement centre who was asked by farmers to waive the condition of government-issued bardana so that they could use their own packaging. He issued on-the-spot orders to the deputy district officer (revenuee) to also accept wheat from the farmers not registered for bardana.
But as soon as the minister left the centre, the DDO
