PM stresses check on Wheat prices

ISLAMABAD—Caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro on Tuesday directed the Ministry of Food & Agriculture to pro-actively monitor the wheat situation in the country and maintain a close liaison with all provincial food departments to ensure availability of wheat and maintain the prices of flour at a reasonable level.
The Prime Minister was chairing a meeting here to review the wheat situation in the country. He directed that effective measures should be taken by the Provincial Governments to control prices of wheat and atta and, in this connection action should be initiated against wheat hoarders to bring down wheat and atta prices in the country.
The Prime Minister further directed that the Provincial Food Departments should be asked to ensure that adequate transport arrangements were in place for supplying wheat to the flour mills all over the country.
He asked the Ministry of Ports and Shipping to ensure prompt and quick unloading of wheat vessels on their arrival at Port Qasim and KPT. He also instructed the Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and Secretary Interior to take effective measures for controlling the smuggling of wheat products out of the country.
The Prime Minister directed the Ministry of Food & Agriculture to devise a proper monitoring mechanism to ascertain the supply of wheat to the flour mills and access their actual milling. He said that the wheat should be supplied to those mills only which are operational and it should be ensured that the supply should be matched to their actual output.
The Prime Minister said that availability and prices of wheat both need to be closely monitored so that hoarders could not take advantage by creating artificial wheat shortage. He asked the Ministry of Food & Agriculture to have a close coordination with Provincial Food departments so that they could pick up their wheat stock on time for onward supply to the flour mills.
He also stressed the need for the development of more storage houses by PASSCO in the country in order to increase stocking more wheat. The Prime Minister constituted a Committee under the chairmanship of Deputy Chairman Planning Commission to examine the issue of wheat supply, its distribution and prices.
The Committee was also tasked to propose measures to ensure uninterrupted supply of wheat and atta at reasonable prices till the arrival of new crop. The Committee was also tasked to review the policy regarding export of atta by land route.
Earlier, Secretary Food & Agriculture while briefing the meeting about the wheat situation in the country informed that the country had sufficient stocks of wheat available which were being further augmented through import of wheat.
Shipments of around 600,000 tons of wheat were due over next four to six weeks and more shipments were being arranged so as to have sufficient stocks for liberal releases of wheat by the provinces. Secretary Interior also apprised the meeting that all the law enforcing agencies and the border security forces have already been directed to check the hoarding as well as smuggling of wheat, which would be further beefed up.
Caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro on Tuesday said that peace and stability in the tribal areas will ensure development in this part of the country and would bring about improvement in the standard of living of the people.
He was talking to Governor NWFP, Lt. Gen. (Retd) Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai and a group of Senators from FATA who called on him here at the PM House this afternoon. The Prime Minister said election is a process to choose representatives who could deliver and strive for the betterment of the people of their constituencies.—APP