GUJRANWALA, May 2: Growers have criticised the government for its defective wheat procurement policy and alleged that the food department staff is buying the crop from other districts instead of providing gunny bags to them. They also charged the commission agents of grain markets with buying wheat at a price lower than the one fixed by the government.

At a meeting held here on Tuesday, the growers alleged that the middlemen were buying wheat between Rs350 and Rs380 per 40kg instead of the government’s fixed price of Rs415 per 40kg, and they were earning more profit after selling it between Rs425 and Rs430. They said the procurement centres had declined to buy more wheat from growers.

When contacted, a food department official denied the charges and said an inquiry could be initiated on the basis of receipts of memorandum submitted by the growers. He claimed that the food department had fixed the target of buying 800,000 bags of wheat for which gunny bags had already been issued to the growers.

It is learnt that an uncountable number of bags of wheat were already in the food department stock of last year and if it achieves the target, the department will have to go for more godowns or private buildings. The department can store about one million bags of wheat.

According to reports, the food department had procured around 725,000 bags of wheat last year and 69,000 bags were imported from foreign countries. In addition, it purchased 51,000 bags from Sialkot and 696,000 from other districts.

When the food department started providing wheat bags to flour mills from Dec 1, 2005, the department had a stock of 1.55 million bags of which five flour mills bought 500,000 bags.

The department is now already claiming to have achieved 45 per cent of the target of wheat and said the target will be achieved by May 10.

oil prices: The local chamber of commerce and industry, politicians and people from different walks of life have criticised the government for raising prices of petroleum products.

At a meeting held here on Tuesday with chamber acting president Ziaullah Irfani in the chair, the participants said the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority had raised oil prices when the same had went down in the international market.

They demanded that this increase should be withdrawn immediately.

Punjab PML-N chief organiser and former minister Ghulam Dastagir, PPP district president ex-MNA Abdullah Virk, MPAs Zahid Pervaiz, Lalla Shakeel and Chaudhry Shabbir also condemned the increase in oil prices.