MULTAN, April 30: Local flour millers have agreed to remain on the sidelines in the wheat market during the coming 10 days to enable the district government to achieve its procurement target.
In an unprecedented move, District Nazim Riaz Husain Qureshi requested the millers at a meeting here on Friday to stop wheat procurement until the official target was accomplished.
Representatives of the Flour Mills Association and the food department attended the meeting in which the Nazim also ordered that all those purchasers, hailing from the private sector, could not procure wheat during the next 10 days in the district even if they had licences to buy the commodity.
According to an official handout, the Nazim had pledged action against all those, who would enter into a wheat procurement deal, other than the official procurement centres during the period.
He directed the food department officials to raid warehouses of the hoarders and confiscate their wheat stocks after paying them the official procurement price. The Nazim ordered police to ensure enforcement of the ban on the inter-district movement of the commodity under section 144 CrPC.
He also directed the food department to cooperate with the flour millers by ensuring smooth supply of wheat to them from the official stocks. Food department deputy-director Arif Raza Bokhari told the participants that stern action would be taken against all those officials, who could not achieve the wheat procurement targets assigned to them. He added that show-cause notices had already been served on 30 department officials.
PROCUREMENT: Wheat arrival pattern and the official procurement figures this year are so intriguing that an aura of confusion has been striking the market at present.
Growers, brokers, flour millers and government departments concerned are confused that what shape the wheat market will assume in days to come owing to government's resolve to accomplish official procurement targets and private sector's endeavour to stock as much wheat as possible to replicate its exorbitant profits earned during the previous year.
Early maturity of the crop due to sudden rise of temperature in the months of February and March has shrunk the wheat grain and subsequently the per acre yield. Agriculturists say that early harvest and small grain size can surprise the official observers who have pinned hopes of a bumper crop.
Therefore, an optimistic official wheat procurement target of 5.7m tons has been set with 3.5m tons of the expected share from the Punjab. Last year, the government could procure only 3.5m tons of wheat from whole of the country against the target of 5.3m tons.
Six districts of the former civil division of Multan have been given a collective wheat procurement target of 1.1m tons, which is almost one-third of the target given to the province.
According to the official figures, 267,948 tons of wheat was procured by April 27 from the Multan division as compared to 129,000 tons of wheat procured up to same day last year.
Responsible officials at the local food department office were not certain despite having procured wheat more than double the corresponding period last year that the target would be achieved.
An official at the storage and enforcement wing of the department said that the crop size and the market prices would play an important role in achieving the wheat procurement target or vice versa.
He said though the provincial government had practically banned inter-provincial movement of wheat to first fulfil its procurement target, but some unscrupulous elements were taking advantage of the free movement of the wheat flour.
He said normally most of the flour mills suspended wheat grinding in the procurement season to fine tune their machinery for another season but this year a majority of the mills were operative to subside ban on wheat movement by exporting its flour to other parts of the country.
He said the growers had also withheld their produce speculating further rise in the wheat price when the ban on its movement clamped under section 144 CrPC would be revoked.
Another food department official said usually the official wheat procurement drive came to an end by May 20 but this year it was likely to prolong up to June 30 owing to slow arrival of the fresh wheat due to cautious selling by the growers.
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