To ensure sufficient availability of wheat stock and meet requirement of the commodity, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has allocated Rs 2.90 billion for subsidy and procurement of wheat in the province. For the fiscal year 2016-17, the KP government has planned to procure 400,000 metric tons to fulfil requirements, official sources said.
However, they said that the province does not have the capacity to store 400,000 metric tons of wheat, but it has to go for it in line with an instruction by the federal government. The Food Department in consultation with the Federal Government and approval of the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has fixed a procurement target of 0.300 million metric tons from local growers/ parties etc, at the rate of Rs 1300 per 40 kg, the document said.
It further said the growers/parties are encouraged to offer their wheat to Food Department. For the procurement of wheat, a credit line of Rs 9,750 million has been availed from the banks on the basis of competitive bidding. In case the procurement target is met fully or partially, the Department would save billions of rupees to the exchequer which are paid to Punjab or PASSCO as incidental and transportation charges. The wheat purchased locally or from Punjab/PASSCO is stored in 27 PRCs/Godowns spread all over the province having capacity of 400,000 tons. The Department plans to increase this capacity to 600,000 metric tons.
The Food Department is responsible to ensure availability of wheat and other food requirements of the province, because the province depends on import from Punjab to meet its food requirements, especially wheat. Apart from this, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has got a long porous border with Afghanistan, which is a food deficit country and traditionally depends on Pakistan especially Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for its food requirement. The Impact of the shortage of wheat and its products in Afghanistan is felt in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa either in the shape of shortage of supply or price hikes. In this scenario, the document said.