11 April 2004	Sunday	20 Safar 1425

LAHORE, April 10: The Punjab Food Department and the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) began on Saturday the procurement of wheat in the Punjab.

The two organizations plan to procure a total of 4.72 million tons of wheat from the province this year - the food department 3.5 million tons followed by PASSCO 1.22 million tons.

The food department had set up 308 procurement centres while PASSCO would procure 1.22 million tons of wheat from 15 districts (44 tehsils) across the province.

There would be no restriction on the inter-district movement of wheat.

The State Bank had provided a credit line of Rs22 billion at the mark-up rate of 1.74 per cent to help PASSCO procure wheat from the Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan.-APP