LAHORE, April 19: The wheat procurement drive is in full swing in the province, with price hovering between Rs345 and Rs365 for a 40kg bag. With the arrival of fresh crop, a cut-throat competition among the buyers of public and private sectors is expected during the next few days.

According to market analysts, about one-fifth of the crop has already been procured by the buyers during the first week of the drive, which started on April 10. During this period, the growers have generally got more than the official price of Rs350 per maund largely due to the fact that the crop this year matured almost two weeks earlier than the routine time, as unexpected temperatures gripped the plains of the Punjab in March.

Wheat procurement normally starts after April 15 in the Punjab, but both government agencies - the Punjab Food Department and the Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation - went into buying spree from April 10.

The food department has succeeded in procuring 280,000 tons of wheat till Sunday and Passco around 146,877 tons. Last year, Passco started its procurement campaign on April 26.

Apart from public sector, private parties from all the four provinces are playing major role in the whole process. They are in the market with clear advantages in that they can offer higher prices, do not have to worry much about quality and transparency, and can pay advance money to farmers for keeping crop with them and sell them later.

Most of these parties, especially from outside the Punjab, have been offering more than the official support price and dealers are directly contacting growers to lift the maximum quantity.

Owing to aggressive purchase by the private parties, the public sector is least likely to achieve the official wheat procurement target. The federal government had set the target of 5.6 million tons this year - 3.5 million tons for the Punjab, 1.4 million tons for Passco, 0.6 million tons for Sindh, and 0.1 million tons for Balochistan.

The food department officials are not confident about achieving the target, but at least 2.5 million tons of wheat to meet the food security target. Meanwhile, the Pakistan Flour Mills Association's executive committee on Monday demanded the Punjab government that it should ban all other stockists, except the flour millers, from buying wheat.

The provincial government has turned a deaf ear to the millers' proposals during the procurement. The informal sector is currently dominating the procurement drive and is likely to stock the crop and fleece the public at some stage.