SAB concerned over free import of food items

Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) in a communication to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz expressed its concern over the government decision allowing free import of food items and appealed the government to reconsider the import policy under which certain agricultural commodities have to be imported from neighbouring India.
The board was of the view that the whole scenario of inflation has been interpreted by CPI and the stakeholders particularly the representative of the farming communities were not taken into confidence nor their point of view was heard before taking such decision.
The board maintained that at no point growers supported that the food item should be sold at unaffordable price to community. The point of contention was that when the support price of wheat was enhanced as incentive to growers the prices of wheat has also been increased, which is absolutely incorrect.
The statistic is on the record that the wheat flour prices in open market was Rs 14 to 15 per Kg much before the announcement of the support price owing to low yield, hoarding by profiteers and availability of credit facilities to wheat traders and millers on low market rates.
The wheat production during the year 2004-05 according to government statistic, is around 21.1 million tonnes which is around 1.1 million tonnes surplus against the domestic wheat requirements apart from the carryover stock as such there was no justification to allow free import of wheat instead of looking into the causes as to why wheat prices even after the country harvested near bumper crop the price of wheat flour continue to maintain high profile.
Let us take it for granted that the government wanted to regulate the wheat price which had recorded abnormal increase then what was the impact of wheat import as the first ship carrying wheat has already been docked?
The board was of the view that in case of shortfall or price hike the government is justified to import food item but that too should be in limited quantity. Moreover, import of all agricultural commodities should be stopped at the time when harvest is around the corner for instant harvesting of onion which produce surplus to domestic requirement, which would start next month and as such its import should be stopped forthwith.