LAHORE, March 17: The Punjab government has made arrangements for procuring 3.5 million tons of wheat, and it would keep buying the crop till the last grain available, Food Minister Chaudhry Muhammad Iqbal told Dawn.

Flanked by Secretary (Food) Raja Shahid Hussain, the minister claimed that the minimum requirement for food security was 2.6 million tons. The procurement policy would have two more basic premises: ensuring the support price and procuring the last grain of wheat.

Dilating upon the salient features of the procurement policy due in a couple of days, the minister and the secretary said that flag centres would be increased from last year's 71 to 100 or more.

If an MPA helped the department purchase 100,000 bags of wheat, a flag centre would be established in his locality. All purchase centres would be moved out of cities to avoid traffic muddles.

The department has decided to increase the limit of unpacked wheat from 20 to 50 maunds for the year. Similarly, up to 100 gunny bags would be provided to farmers on personal guarantee, without any call deposit. The limit was 50 bags last year.

Farmers would get up to 200 bags from a centre on call deposit, up to 500 bags from the district food inspector and up to 1,000 bags from the deputy director.

Regarding doubts about department's ability to achieve the procurement targets because of tough competition, they were of the opinion that the government was determined to buy a minimum of 2.6 million tons of wheat to ensure food security.

They hoped that it would be achieved because of the expected big crop size. Once crop size became clear to stockists, they would not go for procurement in a big way because of stable supplies and prices later in the season.

Only serious buyers would be in the market competing with the department. But if, God forbids, the crop size is not as healthy as early clues suggest, the department would look into the possibility of taking administrative and financial measures to meet the target. They both earnestly hoped they would not have to take such extreme measures.

Another way of meeting the target was early procurement. The department plans to start buying wheat from the first week of April when the private sector avoids buying because of moisture in the crop.

This would give department almost one week of monopoly and help it achieve the target.In order to balance facilitating farmers and urban population, the department would increase its targeted subsidy under Sasta Atta Scheme.

It would increase coverage of the scheme from the present 10 per cent of urban population to 15 per cent and also enhance duration from this year's three months - January to March - to six months, starting from November.

In order to make the policy as farmer-friendly as possible, the department has ended the role of patwari in procurement. There would be no need for acquiring a certificate from any one for supplying wheat to a purchase centre. The farmers would have to get clearance from the purchase committee at the centre to supply wheat.

Commenting on high flour prices, the minister maintained that only bumper or healthy crops could keep the flour prices down. The government had kept the sector on a negative subsidy for the last many years.

It had to provide relief to farmers, either by cutting prices of inputs or increasing the support price. Both these options had their pluses and minuses. But farming had to be protected if the government wanted food security.

At present, the only viable option seems to be a raise in support price as the government cannot bring the cost of inputs down because of international pressure.

He insisted that the government was doing all it could for controlling flour prices. The private sector had exploited the situation to its advantage. If the department succeeded in procuring enough wheat, manoeuvring by the private sector could be curtailed next year.

For this reason, the food department was determined to procure around 3.5 million tons of wheat, a target given by the Chief Minister Ch Pervaiz Elahi for balancing the market better. The minister also said that the cascading system would continue next year and so would the current transportation policy.

The DAWN