USMAN CHEEMA
ISLAMABAD
Time to make money for the Passco and Punjab Food Department as the wheat harvest harvesting has started and farmers are in queue to obtain gunny bags in order to sell their produce to the government that they are unable to get without paying bribe to the officials of Food Department.
The government has a policy that it only buys wheat product from the farmers who are issued gunny bags by the provincial and federal government as they are not allowed to bring their produce in their own bags to sell it to the provincial food departments. This policy helps the officials appointed in different areas to make million in wheat harvesting season that can also be called as the business season for these officials. Sindh Food Department officials have already set a price of gunny bags and the farmers association has accused that they are demanding Rs 200 and Rs 400 respectively for 50 kilogram and 100 kilogram gunny bags.
In Punjab the special is not set and the deal is done as per the situation. But the farmers have to pay for the gunny bags in most of the cases. Only in the case of Sindh, the officials are going to make several billion rupees during the season as the Food Department has to issue 48 million gunny bags for wheat procurement.
It has been suggested many times that the farmers should be allowed to use their own gunny bags and the government should only provide a specification of those bags. The wheat procurement should be done on the first come first serve basis and the government should make a policy to facilitate small farmers in the country.
But the federal and provincial governments always have turned deaf ears to this suggestion as the strong lobbies oppose this as it deprive them of huge bribe money expected to come from the poor farmers.