VEHARI: Wheat growers have alleged malpractice and abuse of power by the food department in the ongoing wheat procurement drive.

Kissan Board Pakistan President Chaudhry Tariq Mahmood said the farmers were being forced to sell their wheat crop to middlemen at Rs1,100 per 40 kilo, though the official price was Rs1,300.

He said the officials facilitated the middlemen through rejecting the crop of growers.

Mumtaz, Ehsan, Gulam Rasool, Nazir Ahmed and Ghulam Muhammad, of 97/ WB said they brought 500 bags to the procurement centre, and of that food officials accepted 100 bags and rejected the remaining on quality metre. They had to sell the wheat to middlemen at Rs1,100.

Also, a farmer, of the Luddan area, alleged officials at the procurement centres received kickbacks before releasing the price of the crop to them.

The Food Department has set up procurement centres in Vehari, Luddan, Mian Pakhi, Pul-48, 65/ WB, Adda Ghulam Husain, Beny Shell, PR-Centre of Machiwal, 481/EB and other areas.

Pakistan Kissan Ittehad president Zulfiqar Awan said they had unearthed entries in the name of fakegrowers at every procurement centres. He alleged he had found 102 fake entries at the Pul-48 procurement centre, Pakhi Mor 84 entries and PR-Centre 94 fake entries.

He said they had informed Deputy Commissioner Ali Akbar Bhatti and District Food Controller (DFC) All Imran about the situation.

He alleged that at rural areas centres, only influential people and middlemen were being provided wheat bags.

He said the government had placed traders as growers` representatives on the advisory committee, who were watching the interest of their colleagues only. He demanded that growers` problems be solved.

DFC Imran denied allegations by growers. He, however, admitted that some fake entries had been reported at certain procurement centres which had been fixed. He said food officials were working on merit.

The department will buy 1.5 million bags this year in Vehari till May 31.

Last year, he said, the department had bought the same number of wheat bags. He said 200,000 wheat bags had already been bought till Tuesday.

He said the department would buy 20 percent of the total production. He said the expected production this year was about 6.5 million wheat bags. He said they had distributed 500,000 bags among the farmers while the reamining 1000,000 would be distributed till May 31.