Wheat price raised to Rs.510 per 40 kg
By Asad Cheema

ISLAMABAD—The Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet (ECC) here on Monday announced Rs. 510 per 40 kg as procurement price for the coming wheat harvests.Decision to this affect was taken at the ECC meeting presided over by the Caretaker Prime Minister Muhammadmian Soomro.
Later briefing the newsmen, about the decisions of the ECC, Special Secretary to Finance Ministry, Dr.Ashfaq Hassan Khan said that the ECC announced that the procurement prices of the wheat in the coming harvesting season would be Rs. 510 per 40 kg, which was Rs.425 per 40 kg in the previous harvesting season.
However, the ECC decided that the release price of wheat from the government stock to flour mills will continue at the existing price of Rs. 465 per 40 kg even from the new harvesting stock, he said. Dr. Ashfaq said that in the earlier meeting the government announced that it would procure 7 million tons of wheat, but during the today’s meeting the Ministry of Food Agriculture and Live Stock (MINFAL) and other participants were of the view that this target is an ambitious target and would be difficult to meet.
However, Dr. Ashfaq Hassan Khan said, the ECC decided that now wheat can be procured 5 million tons or more than that at the rate of Rs. 510 per 40 kg. The ECC , he said also decided that efforts being made by the government and Federal Food Committee (FFC) and all the line departments for strict checking of the smuggling of wheat/flour at the borders would continue.
He said that ECC noted that there is a wheat stock of 659,439 tons of wheat in the country and one million tons of imported wheat is in the pipeline. He added that ECC called for enhancing the per acre yield of existing 29 maund to 30 maund per acre yiled and measures including provision of quality seed and inputs be ensured to achieve this objective. The ECC also noted that the salaries of the employees of Airport Security Force (ASF) is less than PIA and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) employees and also approved a salary enhancement package for the ASF employees.
The budgetary impact of the package will be Rs.260 million on the national exchequer. The ECC decided that to meet the salary raise expenses of the ASF, a Security Surcharge of Rs.20 on the domestic tickets and Rs. 40 on international tickets will be imposed with immediate effect.
Federal government has fixed the price of wheat at Rs. 510 per maund which would be applied for new crop of the wheat while flourmills would be provided wheat at official rates. This was decided in a meeting of Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) held under the chair of Caretaker Prime Minister Muhammadmian Soomro here on Monday, in which the participants also discussed the prolonged issue of wheat prices deciding to fix it as Rs. 510 per maund, which would be applied on new wheat crop while it would be provided to flourmills owners at official rate of Rs. 465 per maund. The ECC has reduced the target of purchasing wheat from 7 million tons to 5 million tons on the request of Ministry of Food and Agriculture while Ministry of Interior has been directed to maintain security measures to check the illegal smuggling of wheat.
Later, Special Secretary of Ministry of Finance Dr. Ashfaq Hassan, while briefing media persons told that due to subsidy on electricity given by government, distribution companies have to bear the financial loss of rupees 57 billion during the fiscal year 2007-08 adding that Ministry of Finance has allocated Rs. 25 billion to compensate this loss while remaining Rs. 32 billion will be paid to distribution companies through commercial banks. He added that to compensate this loss, loans of rupees eight billion were provided to each distribution company including Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO), Gujranwala (ESCO), Faisalabad and Lahore ESCO. He further told that government has increased the salaries of staff of Airport Security Force (ASF) upto 260 million annually as their salaries were low as compare to Motorway Police and Civil Aviation Authority.
He maintained that this amount of Rs. 260 million would be gained through security charges on domestic and international travel tickets that would impose at the rate of 20 and 40 rupees respectively. He said that agreement had been finalized with Hororoba Group to establish Pak-China Economic Zone but due to increase the price of land and on the basis of some financial problems the aforementioned company has expressed its regrets to purchase the land and ECC has put this matter before Ministry of Finance and its report would be presented soon.