Federal Minister for Industries, Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo on Saturday said that the government is going to flood the market with urea through the Utility Stores Corporation (USC) outlets in all four provinces of the country. Briefing newsmen here at a local hotel, he said that Pakistan for first time is importing 3.5 lakh tonnes of urea while the same quantity of the commodity had been purchased from the local manufacturers.
Flanked by NWFP Minister for Industries and officials of the Ministry of Industries, he said that country was facing shortage of urea. The share of Punjab and Sindh, the two wheat producing provinces in the distribution of urea is 60 percent and 35 percent while NWFP has a share of 4 percent and the remaining 1 percent for Balochistan.
The imported urea, he said would be downloaded at Gawadar Sea Port, which had been made operational. Other imported goods including wheat and cement would be downloaded at Gawadar Port to take benefit of the deep seaport. The Gawadar Seaport has a big scope and is a great asset that would play important role in promotion of Pakistan's trade with China, Central Asia and Middle East.
He said that NWFP will be provided 3,090 tonnes of urea for which instead of its actual share of 4 percent is 5.8 percent. The urea produced by National Fertiliser Corporation (NFC) and import commodity had been stored in the warehouses of the Utility Stores Corporation from where it would be distributed among the growers.
The minister for industries said that the ministry is purchasing a bag of urea at Rs 650 per bag from the manufacturers and with transport charges it price climbed to Rs 270. However, he said that dealers were selling at exorbitant price of Rs 900 to Rs 1000 per bag to the farmers. He said the government had purchased 50 percent production of the manufacturers to protect growers from the black marketers.
About the distribution through USC, he said that the corporation has the largest number of 6,000 stores saying no other institution has such big network of stores in the country. In this connection, he appreciated the performance of both USC and NFC. He disclosed that during the last six months, the corporation had opened 1,500 new stores as we had decided to give relief to the people from the higher prices of the essential items.
The officials of the corporation had made efforts resulting in reaching the number of stores in NWFP to 1,126. The number of utility stores in Fata is 130. Regarding wheat shortage, he said that during the current financial year, the government had spent Rs 100 billion on the import of the commodity, which on the end of the year would settle at Rs 150 billion. He said that it is matter of shame that despite an agricultural country Pakistan is importing wheat. But, he said the present government had no fault in it.
Manzoor Wattoo said that government is purchasing wheat from international market at Rs 1,600 per 40 kilogram while it is being provided to flour mills at the subsidised rate of Rs 950 per 40 kilogram. He disclosed that the area of wheat cultivation had increased by 7 percent and now people had started investment in the sector.
He was optimistic that the measures of the government would not only help make Pakistan self-sufficient in wheat, but will also in position to export it to the other countries. He agreed with the demands of the president of Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI), Sharafat Ali Mubarak for deregulation of the price of electricity and declaration of NWFP as war affected area.