LAYYAH: May 30: Officials of the Pakistan Agriculture Services and Storage Corporation (Passco) in Layyah have allegedly violated rules in the ongoing wheat procurement drive, Dawn has learnt.

Passco officials did not provide gunny bags to farmers and only middlemen were obliged. These middlemen were, however, robbed of two kg wheat on each wheat bag. Middlemen were paid the price of 101 kg wheat for their 102 kg wheat bag.

Mian Bahadar Wheat Procurement Centre was given the target of 80,000 wheat bags procurement but the centre procured 63,500 wheat bags by May 15. The Bhagal Centre bought 45,000 wheat bags against the target of 70,000; Chowk Azam Centre bought 56,000 bags against the target of 80,000 bags.

During the pilling of bags, officials break open some wheat bags deliberately. According to agro storage experts, these open bags can cause great damage to the stored wheat.

Passco centres in charges Shaukat Bukhari, Azizur Rehman and Khalid Rasheed say that middlemen play an important rule in achieving the procurement target so their role cannot be overlooked. They said they were facing difficulties in meeting their targets because of shortage of jute bags. They said they had demanded more jute bags from their department.