The Department of Food, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has sought an amount of Rs 2.9 billion as subsidy on flour for financial year 2015-16 to meet total wheat procurement target has been fixed 0.300 million metric tons at the rate of Rs 300 per 40 kilograms. The Department has issued a quantity of 185,162 tons of wheat to subsidise rate to the flour mills for which the Finance Department has released Rs 2.714 billion in the current fiscal year. For the financial year 2015-16, the Department has demanded 2.90 billion, says budget documents.
The KP Food Department in consultation with the Federal Government has fixed a procurement target of 0.300million metric tons wheat for local growers and other parties at the rate of Rs 1300 per 40 kilogram. The growers are encouraged to offer their wheat to Food Department for sale enabling it to meet the target. For the procurement of wheat, a credit line of Rs 9750 million availed from the banks on the basis of competitive bidding.
The KP wheat requirement is 4,314,163 metric tons per year. After adjustment of local production of 1,158,069 metric tons, the net requirement comes to 3,156,094 metric tons. This deficiency is met out through open markets from Punjab according to the principles of demand and supply. The Food Department issues a specific quota to all districts on the basis of population to stabilise prices in the markets during the lean period to September to April.
The wheat purchased locally or from Punjab is stored in 27 Price Retail Centre (PRCs)/godwons spread all over the province having capacity of 4lakh tons. The Department is planning to increase the capacity to 6lakh tons. In order to provide cheaper flour to the general public, the Department releases wheat to the flour mills at less-price than the landed cost and this burden is taken by the Provincial Government in the shape of subsidy. There are 240 flour mills in the province out of which 230 are in KP and 10 in Fata. Of the total flour mills in KP, 43 are non-functional and six are non functional in Fata.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is historically a wheat deficit province and purchased the commodity from Punjab/PASSCO and import from abroad through Federal Government for meeting its requirements. The Provincial Government also caters for the needs of Fata and Afghans refugees residing in KP. Above from this, KP has got a long porous border with Afghanistan, which is food deficit country and traditionally depends on Pakistan especially KP for its food requirements.
The impact of the shortage of wheat and its products in Afghanistan is felt in KP either in the shape of shortage, supply or price-hike. In this scenario, the KP Food Department plays an important role to offset the impact created by shortage or price-hike due to export of the commodity to Afghanistan.
Comments
Comments are closed.