HYDERABAD, March 21 Twenty-one wheat procurement centres have been set up in four districts of the former Hyderabad district. This was stated by district food controller Salahuddin Shaikh at a news conference here on Sunday.

He said the centres would start functioning from Monday, adding that the government had set up such centres throughout the province to help growers and rid them of middlemen who always fleeced them.

He said the centres in the four districts had been given the target of buying 610,000 bags of wheat. Two centres in Hyderabad district will buy 55,000 bags, two in Tando Mohammad Khan 75,000 bags, five in Tando Allahyar 168,000 bags and 12 in Matiari district 312,000 bags.

The government, he said, had increased procurement target by 15 per cent, adding that 530,654 bags of wheat had been purchased in four districts last year.

He said the growers would be paid Rs950 per 40kg and Rs2,375 for 100kg and advised them to get application forms from the centres for 200 gunnybags free of charge. The growers will have to bring clean wheat to the centres within a week.

He said that wheat would be weighed, quality checked and lot numbers would be entered. The growers would get payment from designated banks soon after supplying wheat to the centers, he said.

He appealed to growers to sell their wheat directly to the procurement centres and not through middlemen. If any grower faced difficulty in this regard, he should file a complaint with the complaint cell set up at the district food controller's office near Rani Bagh or call on 9200808 or 0300-3790121. They could also lodge complaints through SMS, he added.