October 16, 2001	Tuesday	Rajab 28, 1422

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 15: The government is faced with the daunting task of disposing off over two million tons of surplus wheat, besides rice and onions, with limited export options and storage capacity, official sources told Dawn on Monday.

The government has already written to the world relief agencies, including the UNHCR and World Food Programme, to give preference to Pakistan while placing purchase orders for foodstuff required to meet their emergency needs in Afghanistan as well as for the Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

But there has been no response yet from any of them, officials said.

The reason given for the piling up of stocks, was the US-led air attacks on Afghanistan, bulk transportation to Afghanistan through private parties had stopped.

A total of around 2.5 million tons of wheat was expected to be purchased and supplied to Afghanistan through private sector this year, which seems difficult now.

Pakistan has a total storage capacity of 4.5 million tons and its reserve stocks were over 7.5 million tones, including 3.5 million tones carryover from previous year.

As a result, the government was constrained to stock remaining three million tons of wheat under tarpaulin and open sky, endangering its quality.

Hence, the officials fear that if surplus stock of wheat is not disposed off soon it will become unedible.

Official sources in the ministry of food and agriculture told Dawn that Iraq had cancelled the remaining order of 35,000 tons after discovering that Pakistani wheat was substandard and contained dust.

This has dimmed chances of any future business deal with Iraq.

Sources said that the World Food Programme had only picked 12,000 tons of wheat for supplementing its storage position for supply into the war-ravaged Afghanistan. However, the purchases by the world food body were slow, and there was little time left with the government to do something about the wheat stocks.

Iraq’s order was 100,000 tons, of which 65,000 tons had been delivered and the remaining order was cancelled. It is said that an Indian party’s offer was lower which was the cause of the cancellation of the order.