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VEHARI, April 26: Already groaning with the cotton crisis, growers in the district are left in the lurch as their wheat could not attract more than Rs240 per 40kg, much below the officially announced price of Rs300.
A survey conducted by this correspondent gave out the wheat crop had been sold at Rs225 per 40kg at Vehari, Luddan, Mailsi, Burewala, Karampura, Jalla Jeem, Tibba Sultanpur and Gagomandi.
The government had proposed setting up of wheat procurement centres at the union council level, but the Food Department violated the decision with impunity. Out of 89 union councils in the Vehari district, the Food Department could not establish more than seven procurement centres.
Kissan Mahaz spokesman Rana Tassawer said the decision on the wheat quality would only give rise to corruption. Mostly Passco and Food officials did not close with the export quality wheat from farmers while the same wheat had been passed through middlemen last year, he said.
Farmers, he said, were forced to sell their wheat to middlemen as below as Rs200 per 40kg.
A group of small farmers and local Kissan Board Pakistan president Chaudhry Tufail Warraich told Dawn that his community would not cast votes in the referendum if their crop was not procured at fixed prices.
They demanded increase in wheat prices owing to extra expenditure incurred on the crop in the wake of water shortage.
When contacted, District Food Controller Naseem Husain Shah said the Food Department would purchase 1.62 million wheat bags and the expected target would be increased after a month.
Since the Passco had still not started procurement at its centres in Burewala and Mailsi, the Food Department was facing difficulties at its only procurement centre in Vehari tehsil, he said. He however said the wheat would be procured till the target was achieved.
A farmer of Chak 5/WB said out of his 200 wheat bags, the Food Department purchased only 40 bags while the rest were declared as poor quality. Later, he sold wheat to the middleman at the local grain market at Rs230.
An insider of the Food Department said the rejected wheat was also of the same quality, but the officials took the decision on the instructions of high-ups.
ALLOCATED: The government has allocated a sum of Rs50 million for the development of courts, Federal Law Minister Dr Khalid Ranjha said.
Speaking at the oath-taking ceremony of local Bar office-bearers, he said the Bar and bench should make collective efforts to provide justice to people.
He maintained the project of the lawyers’ colony in Vehari would be sanctioned within a month. He announced that the government would provide Rs200,000 for the District Bar Library.
Later, the law minister met growers and lumberdar at circuit house.
He assured them that the government would resolve their problems on priority.
