Govt to use all resources to ensure provision of food commodities on affordable rates: Fakhar

ISLAMABAD: Minister for National Food Security and Research Syed Fakhar Imam here on Wednesday reaffirmed the goverment commitment for taking all possible measures to ensure provision of essential food commodities on affordable rates to a common man in the country.

Addressing a press conference along with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Minister for Industries and production Hammad Azhar, Fakhar said that government was fully cognizant about the problems faced by people in the country and taking measures to overcome the challenges.

He assured that due to the measures which were being taken by the government, the effects of relief would soon start appearing, besides he warned that strict action be taken against those who involved in speculative demands and hoarding of edible items.

The minister said that international price parity of wheat as compared to local market spiked the prices and created a room for third force to hoard the commodity for extra profiteering.

He said that mechanism in collaboration with provincial governments would be evolved to check undue price hike and discouraging the nexuses of cartels and hoarders.

About the local wheat position, he said that last year, the country harvested about wheat 25.25 million tons of wheat as against the set targets of 27 million tons, which was short by 1.7 million tons.

In order to fulfill the shortage of wheat, he said that government had decided to import about one million tons of the grains in order to bridge demand and supply gap, besides keeping domestic supplies at smooth level.

Giving the province wise output details of the wheat, he said that Punjab produced about 19.3 million ton, Sindh 3.85 million tons and production in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remained 1.25 million tons.

He said government had also decided to procure 8.2 million tons of wheat for fulfilling the domestic requirements as against 4 million tons procurements of same period of last year.

He said that minimum support price of wheat was fixed at Rs. 1,400 per 40 kg and Punjab procured about 4 million tons, PASCO 1.2 million tons and Balochistan 90,000 tons respectively.

About 6.5 to 6.6 million tons of the grains were procured during the season, he said adding that Punjab had initiated its releases of about 17,000 tons per day from officials stocks from July in order to keep the supply smooth.

Punjab had released about 1.4 million tons of wheat to mills so far, he said adding that Sindh had not started its releases to mills despite repeated requests and if it starts its releases well in time crisis of wheat could not emerged in Karachi and interior Sindh.

However, he said that today Sindh had decided to start wheat release form October 16 that would help to bring down the prices by maintaining the demand and supply gap.

He said that imported wheat arrived in local markets as public and private sectors were importing, besides the wheat that would be import through government to government would also reach soon.

He said that sufficient wheat reserves were available in the country and it would further strengthen by the arrival of other scheduled consignments, which would discourage the speculative demand and hoarding of the commodity.

Speaking on the occasion, Hammad Azhar said that in 2011, it was told that about 0.3 million tons of sugar laying as exportable surplus.

In July, this year about three time more sugar were lifted from Punjab which resulted in a deficit of about 200,000 to 300,000 tons of sugar, he said adding that there were different causes of this including the availability of wrong data shown by the mills.

He said that government had decided to start physical inspection of sugar to verifying the stocks.

He said that so far about 55,000 tons of sugar had been imported and further 100,000 tons to be arrived in next few days that would bring down the prices of the by Rs. 10 to 15 per kg.

He said sugar mills were asked to ensure sugarcane crushing well in time and late starting mills would be fined Rs. 5 million per day.