TCP fails to import wheat in time

The Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) has failed to import wheat in time, which may lead to shortage of wheat in the country especially in Sindh province, Business Recorder reliably learnt here on Thursday. A wheat arrival schedule was issued by TCP to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (Minfal), according to which about 0.8 million tons imported wheat was scheduled to reach Gwadar port in mid February, but there are no signs of its arrival yet.
Sources in the Food Ministry told this scribe that when the representatives of the Minfal contacted the port authorities they were informed that the shipments carrying imported wheat from Ukraine have not even started their journey towards Pakistan. "The country may face wheat shortage if the imported commodity does not reach the port within next few days", a senior official of Minfal told Business Recorder requesting not be named. He added that TCP is not informing the Food Ministry about the correct arrival schedule of imported wheat at the port.
"Sindh is already facing shortage of wheat. That is why, the Federal government has prepared a ''distribution plan'' and the imported wheat would be distributed to the provinces according to this plan. This plan was made following the schedule issued by TCP to Minfal earlier that was not correct", the official maintained.
He disclosed, "We have to import 1.5 million tons wheat and TCP should cooperate with the Food Ministry in this regard as we are relying only on the corporation in the absence of the private sector that has been banned by the government to import wheat". Due to the shortage of wheat in the province, Sindh is already resisting the Federal government''s decision of allowing Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) to procure wheat from Sindh.
The Federal government has already given the directive to procure wheat according to which Punjab is supposed to procure 3.5 million tons wheat from the growers, Passco 1.5 million tons, Sindh 1.2 million tons, NWFP 0.3 million tons and Balochistan would procure .05 million tons wheat.