Punjab govt decides to devise new wheat procurement policy

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 the new policy, the private sector will directly purchase wheat crops from farmers. “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 a unanimous rate of wheat crop, it 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 bring their expenses down. The food department bears a burden of Rs400 billion in a year in this respect, sources added.

READ MORE: Wheat Import Scandal: Punjab govt decides against buying wheat from farmers

On Thursday, Punjab’s Finance Minister Mujtaba Shuja ur Rehman claimed that the farmers have sold almost all their wheat crops 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,” the minister said.

The government’s decision didn’t harm the farmers as they had already sold their entire crop to the middlemen, he claimed.

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