675,000 tons of wheat procured so far in Sindh Province: Senate Told
'Pakistan Times' Federal Bureau

ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Overseas Pakistanis, Raza Hayat Harraj on Monday informed the Senate that 475,000 tons of wheat have been procured so far in Sindh province.

Sindh government has enhanced the procurement target to 0.7 million this year to facilitate the growers in the province, he said while responding an adjournment motion.

The motion, moved by opposition member Prof. Khurshid Ahmed regarding procurement of wheat in the Sindh province was opposed by Raza Hayat Harraj, who said this issue has already been discussed in the House during previous session in April.

However, he said wheat procurement in the Sindh province had witnessed an increasing trend during last few years as it was 1,79,000 tons in 2003-04 and 5,00,000 tons in 2004-05.

Besides this, the Minister said, PASCO which is a federal `rocurement department, was also given an additional target to procure 1,00,000 tons of wheat, out of which 70,000 tons of wheat would be procured from Sindh.

He said to facilitate the growers, the number of procurement centres also increased from 189 to 325 and added in May this year 21 more procurement centres have been established.

The Minister said this is policy of the government to procure every grain of wheat on the support price to facilitate the Darmers.●