LAHORE: Following the shortage of wheat in the province, Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi has written a letter to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif demanding one million tonnes of wheat from the centre, including 300,000 tonnes on an immediate basis.

The CM in his letter asked the premier to issue directions to the Ministry of National Food Security and other concerned departments for resolving the problem.

PML-Q leader and former federal minister Moonis Elahi said on Thursday that the Punjab government will not order wheat from the private sector.

Govt refusal to allow wheat import worries Elahi

Moonis said, “Mian Sahib should stop playing with words. We are asking you to give us wheat through two federal agencies, PASCO or Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP).” He said that the Punjab government will have to pay for the wheat in return. He feared that Punjab could face a wheat crisis, but the centre is not allowing the province to import wheat.

On the other hand, sources claimed that the federal government is not allowing the private sector to import wheat because it wants to save every penny of the national exchequer. The government was filling the gap between wheat supply and demand during the last four years, the sources added.

The Prime Minister has sought details of the shortage of wheat in Punjab after the Chief Minister’s letter requesting him to permit the procurement of wheat on an emergency basis.

It may be noted that the Punjab Food Department had informed the Chief Minister about the rapid decrease in the stock of wheat in the province after which the CM wrote a letter to the Prime Minister. If the process of procurement is not started now, the wheat supply in Punjab will further decrease till February and the flour prices will also go up, sources said.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022