A former federal minister, Shaukat Hayat Bosan, has said that the present government is not clear about the procurement of paddy from the growers. He said that the Punjab government has already declined to purchase the upcoming Kharif rice crop, citing lack of expertise, minimal storage capacity and scarcity of funds as major reasons.
Now the Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet has approved paddy crop 2009-10 procurement mechanism but without any target for procurement, and allowing the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Supplies Corporation (Passco) to intervene only when the prices of the commodity crash.
Talking to newsmen here on Wednesday he said that paddy growers would suffer this year, too. He bitterly criticised the government for not increasing the support price of wheat crop 2009-10 and keeping it unchanged at Rs 950 per 40 kg. He said that the present regime was taking steps in a haphazard way without any future planning.
Without mentioning the names of Sharif brothers he said that a prominent political family of Punjab was involved in unchecked export of chicken meat to the tune of hundreds of tons daily, which, in his opinion, had caused unprecedented hike in the commodity's price. He said that chicken is available Rs 220 per kg and eggs at Rs 70 per dozen. He demanded of the federal government to stop what he called "uncontrolled export" of chicken to bring down the escalation in prices of chicken meat.
However, he appreciated the fixation of public sector wheat procurement target for 2009-10 at 7.5 million tons against last year's of 6.5 million tons. About export of wheat, the former minister said, "The government should not allow export of wheat at any cost, except for the 0.2 million tons already allowed by the ECC."
Terming the decisions of the ECC as faulty and infeasible , he said that new mechanism would not provide any relief to the growers as Passco has left them at the mercy of rice mills for husking the paddy and then sell the rice through tenders to the intending parties.
"After the provincial food departments refused to procure paddy, the ECC curtailed the role of the food departments to certifying the paddy that the farmers bring to the designated mills of Passco," he added. He said that the government had encouraged the middlemen (Beoparis) who had looted the growers in the past and it would repeat its ugly practice again.