BoI to formulate wheat
procurement policy
Lahore-The Board of Investment (BoI) is
working on a plan for formulating the wheat procurement policy
with particular emphasis on increasing storage capacity by
involving private sector. Well informed sources said here on
August 19 that the BoI is expected to give incentives to the
private sector such as giving them a certain proportion of rent
even in case the storage house is not being used for
procurement.According to the plan, the private sector would
establish storage houses for the procurement of wheat,
increasing the existing storage capacity by at least 4 million
tons from the present 4.5 million tons.
The government would get on rent the
storage houses from the private sector for its own procurement
but if it doesn't procure the crop it would keep on paying a
certain part of the rent to the owner as an incentive , sources
claimed. It may be mentioned that the need for increasing
storage capacity came up last year when the wheat production
shot up to 22 million tons and the government procured over 8
million tons, but did not have enough storage capacity.The
government has already embarked upon a programme to deregulate
its agriculture sector and pulling out of the process of
procuring wheat by 2003 is part of the deregulation strategy,
sources added. The Asian Development Bank wants the government
to deregulate its agriculture sector as part of its conditions
to give loans for this sector, sources concluded.
