Punjab to begin wheat purchase from April 1

The government of Punjab will initiate its province-wise wheat procurement drive from April 1, 2021, announced the provincial food minister on Tuesday.

The provincial food department will ensure anti-Covid SOPs at all wheat procurement centres for its procurement drive and will facilitate farmers in this regard.

“No queue, no wait policy will be followed for the supply of gunny bags to farmers for better Covid precautionary measures,” said senior minister Abdul Aleem Khan.

“After an increase of Rs400 in the official price of wheat, now the crop will be purchased at Rs1,800 per 40 kg which is, indeed, good news for the farmers,” he added.

The federal government has announced wheat support price of Rs1,800 per 40 kg for this year, which is being followed by three provinces. However, Sindh has announced a wheat support price of Rs2,000 per 40 kg to procure 1.4 million tons of wheat.

As per the Ministry of National Food Security, the country is expected to grow 26.2 million tons of wheat this year, which is one million tons more than previous year’s production.

The minister said that the process of transparent distribution of gunny bags to the farmers had also been started while the target of wheat procurement had been fixed at 3.5 to 5 million tons.

He added that this year farmers had been exempted from the compulsion of “fard” and other land-related documents for the purchase of gunny bags, adding that the farmers would get the bags in abundance based on first-come, first-served basis.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2021.

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