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| April 16, 2003 | Wednesday | Safar 13, 1424 |
Punjab wants subsidy on wheat export
LAHORE, April 15: Punjab has requested the federal government to give a subsidy of Rs1,000 per ton to wheat exporters. This was informed during a meeting held on Tuesday with Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi in the chair to finalize arrangements for the wheat procurement season in the province.
Punjab has been yielding bumper wheat crops for the past couple of years and has been exporting it. Yet, a big quantity remained stored last year, prompting the government to retrieve storage costs by offering flour to people at subsidized rates during Ramazan.
The province expects another bumper crop this season and is ready to procure wheat as much as possible from growers at the support price of Rs300 per 40kg.
Officials said Egypt had showed interest in purchasing wheat from Punjab. They quoted the chief minister as having directed the officials to earmark areas producing best wheat with a view to meeting international requirement. The chief minister said wheat should be exported from southern Punjab so as to save transportation expenses as it was closer to the seaport in Karachi.
They said the meeting had decided to provide gunny bags only to growers so that they could sell their crop to the government without any trouble.
The meeting decided that the procurement drive would be supervised by ministers and chief minister’s advisers to ensure the payment of support price to growers, said a handout.
It was informed that 276 procurement centres had been established which would function from 7am to 7pm and would open on holidays. It was decided that supervisory committees would be formed for each centre for smooth procurement of wheat. Every committee will comprise an MNA, an MPA, district and Tehsil Nazims concerned and representatives of farmers.
It was informed that 39 million gunny bags had been purchased which would be adequate for storing 3.6 million tons of wheat. The chief minister directed that weekly meetings should be held under the food minister to pursue the procurement drive in a transparent manner.
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