Passco to float tender to set up grain storage

ISLAMABAD: Food and Agriculture Minister Nazar Muhammad Gondal has said that the country faces a problem of grain storage and the Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Supplies Corporation (Passco) will float a tender shortly for the construction of adequate storage facility.

This will have the capacity to store one million tons of grain. Speaking during question hour in the Senate on Tuesday, Gondal said that the government was considering exporting surplus wheat. He said that wheat production was estimated at 23.86 million tons in the current season as per updated estimates received from provincial governments. Last season, wheat output was 24.03 million tons.

He said that out of the total, Punjab produced 18.24 million tons of wheat, Sindh 3.65 million tons, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 1.18 million tons and Balochistan 790,000 tons.

Published in the Express Tribune, May 12th, 2010.