Punjab seeks Islamabad help to maintain strategic wheat reserves

LAHORE: Punjab has asked federal government to provide wheat stocks for maintaining strategic reserves of three lakh tonnes, a senior official said on Thursday.

The official said the provincial Food Department has urged the federal government to release 300,000 tons of wheat from stocks of Pakistan Agricultural Storage & Services Corporation Limited (PASSCO).

As per official estimate, Punjab needs 1.8 million tonnes of wheat for meeting its requirement uptill April 30th.

As far as wheat requirements of next three months, Punjab expressed the hope that imported consignments being arranged with the help of federal government would fill the gap between demand and supply of grain.

The pace government releasing wheat to flour mills should be satisfactory provided issued grains are grinded and dispatched to market accordingly. Otherwise, crisis of flour shortage and its price hike would continue.

For the forthcoming Ramzan Package, provincial government wants to release 250,000 tonnes of wheat to mills for providing subsidized flour during the holy month. An official said that modalities of Ramzan Package are being finalized with a view to make it convenient for the masses to get flour at subsidized rates across the province.

On reserves side, having carryover stock of 300,000 tonnes, it is expected that the requirements of the province would be met smoothly with the arrival of fresh crop. However, as early estimates suggest less-than-expected output of wheat from upcoming crop, grain crisis would least likely to be subsided.

As per an estimate, wheat production in Punjab has been estimated at 19.8 million tonnes as against 20 million tons harvested last year. National production may be in the range of 26 million tons, leaving a gap of 3.5 to 4.5 million tons if compared with the domestic requirements of 29.5 to 30.5 million tons.

Punjab government also mulling to increase wheat support price to Rs4,000 per maund. Fixation of wheat support price has been another issue in the province as Sindh already announced Rs 4,000 per maund price for its farmers.

It may be noted that Pakistan is currently suffering from skyrocketing prices and a shortage of wheat flour, with people waiting in line for hours to receive flour bag. While the central and provincial governments have blamed each other for the crisis, experts say wheat shortage was caused by low production, long-standing deficiencies exacerbated by the Russia Ukraine war, the 2022 floods, poor distribution, and the smuggling of wheat to Afghanistan.

For weeks now, the price of wheat flour in the country has been hovering at uncomfortably high levels. Roti and naan are among the staple foods of the country, and the steep hike in the cost of flour has pinched people hard. Long queues can be seen to collect government-subsidised flour.

To meet shortfall, imports of wheat to the tune of over 2.5 million tonnes are being made. However, this process could not be done as per plan due to multiple factors including liquidity crunch on the back of scarcity of foreign exchange reserves and bad state of economy.