May 09, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 3, 1429

SANGHAR, May 8: The district food department is unlikely to meet the wheat procurement target of 1,100,000 bags of 100kg this year, a survey by Dawn revealed.

Wheat harvest is over in the district and the food department, according to sources, could purchase hardly 747,000 bags, including 70,000 impounded bags with the help of Rangers, which otherwise could have been smuggled out from the district.

Last year during the harvest season, the food department had set the target of purchasing 800,000 wheat bags but it managed to purchase 642,000 bags only.The main reason for not meeting the target is the mechanism of market.The government has fixed Rs625 for 40kg wheat bag and Rs1,526.25 for bag of 100kg wheat.

However, many traders are buying the grain by paying higher than the price fixed and offered by the government.

The traders are offering Rs1,600 to Rs1,650 and in some cases up to Rs1,700 for a 100kg bag.

Most of the farmers have already sold the commodity at the rate of Rs620 to Rs625 per 40kg.Ordinary farmer have no facility to stock the commodity for long as they have to repay their borrowed money and also to purchase inputs for the next crops.

It is the middlemen and wheat dealers who have hoarded thousands of bags.

Most of the wheat is smuggled at nights to Karachi with the connivance of the black sheep in the food department and of course, police.