2nd wave of COVID-19 in KP: Steps taken to ensure essential food items availability

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Thursday took a number of measures to ensure availability of essential food items in case the second wave of COVID-19 spiralled in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

According to an official handout, the decisions were taken at an emergency meeting of the Provincial Task Force convened at the Planning and Development Department and chaired by Additional Chief Secretary Shakil Qadir Khan. Secretary Local Government, secretary Planning and Development, director, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bureau of Statistics along with the representatives of Industries, Food departments and Performance Management Reforms Unit were present at the meeting.

The single point agenda of the meeting focused on assigning roles and taking measures for the availability of essential food commodities. It was decided that the Food Department would closely monitor and report the demand and supply gap of essential food items in all the districts. The officials of Food, Industries and Agriculture departments were directed to ensure there was sufficient availability of reserves and to keep an eye on the food situation, including perishable food items like vegetables and fruits.

The District Food Controllers were assigned the tasks of collecting and updating the data of available stocks in respective districts on a daily basis. Each district’s stock position will be uploaded and shared through the online data portal managed by the Performance Management and Reforms Unit. It was added that the rising COVID-19 trends in the province had called for priority actions by the government to pre-empt the economic impact.

The participants of the meeting believed that although COVID-19 is primarily a health matter, the crisis may spread out from emergency healthcare to food security, if not administered properly. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bureau of Statistics was instructed to complete the second phase of the survey on job and income losses by December 2020. This data will help the government to understand the lasting economic and employment impact of COVID-19 in the province.

All the deputy commissioners and district food controllers in the province would be notified of the decisions for implementation.