MUZAFFARGARH: The Provincial Food Department will start issuing gunny bags to farmers in the district from April 20. District food officials said they had set a target of 131,000 metric tons.

The government has fixed the official price of wheat Rs1,300 per 40 kilogramme, while farmers will be charged Rs105 per bag.

Officials said each farmer would get eight sacks per acre, and a maximum of 100 sacks would be issued to a farmer. District Food Controller (DFC) Zulfiqar said that 50 per cent of the bags would be issued in the first two weeks of the drive.

He said the food department would initially buy only that yield with less moisture contents as recent rains in the district had added moisture to grains. He said they would buy the yield on a large scale after one week.

District Officer of Agriculture Mehr Abid Husain says 800,000 acres were cultivated in the district this year, and they expected a bumper yield.

Farmers need land record slips from the revenue department to get gunny bags from the food department.

A revenue land record official said data on 56,000 land owners was not included in the computerised land record, implying that 56,000 land owners would not be able to get gunny bags.

Additional District Collector (ADC) Khalid Usman said they were trying to fix the record and all land owners would be issued gunny bags.

He said the DCO had made committees for every procurement centre to supervise gunny bags’ distribution, and procurement and payment activities.

The ADC also said if any farmer’s name was not on computerised land data, these bodies would accommodate them.

MIANWALI: The wheat purchase campaign in Mianwali will begin from April 27 at six centres. District Food Controller (DFC) Zahid Pervaiz told Dawn that the government had set a 570,000 bags target for the Mianwali district. He said complaint cells were being established at centre, tehsil and district levels.

Gunny bags would be distributed from next week on first-come, first-served basis. The DFC said that due to bumper wheat crops, he was optimistic of achieving the target easily.

SIALKOT: The food department will begin issuing gunny bags to farmers from April 25 and buying wheat from May 1 in Gujranwala division.

According to Deputy Director of Gujranwala Food Chaudhry Muhammad Ajmal, the department has established 43 procurement centres in Gujranwala division, of them nine are in Sialkot district, six in Narowal, five in Gujrat, six in Mandi Bahauddin and 18 centers in Gujranwala district.

He said that the food department had 3.97 million gunny bags in the region and godowns would get pesticide spray from April 22.

The Punjab government has fixed a target of 4.32 million bags of wheat in the region.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2015

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