PESHAWAR: NWFP has wheat only for 8 days - Minister
By Zulfiqar Ali
PESHAWAR, May 4: The NWFP has only eight days' wheat stock because of ban imposed by the Punjab government on inter-provincial transportation of the commodity, NWFP Food Minister Fazl-i-Rabbani told a Press conference on Tuesday.
"The province has only 70,000 tons of wheat stock, which is hardly sufficient for seven to eight days. The situation will get worse, if the Punjab government does not lift the ban on wheat movement," Mr Fazl cautioned.
He sought the interference of the president and the prime minister to resolve the matter within the framework of the constitution. He said a meeting of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal was also being convened soon to discuss the wheat issue and to find out an amicable solution to the problem.
"There are only two options: remove the inter- provincial ban on wheat movement or allow provinces to purchase wheat from abroad on their own," Mr Fazl said. The NWFP's total wheat requirement is three million tons.
Of this requirement, two million tons is purchased from the Punjab or abroad while the province's domestic production is one million ton. The daily consumption of wheat in the province is about 7,000 tons.
Holding the Punjab government responsible for the ongoing wheat shortage in the country in general and the NWFP in particular, Mr Fazl termed the ban un-constitutional.
"The Punjab government has bulldozed the 1973 Constitution and other international agreements by imposing restrictions on wheat transportation," the minister said, adding the action was aimed at discouraging future investment in the NWFP.
"The constitution does not allow any authority to place the ban on inter-district and inter-province movement of food commodities," he maintained. He said the Constitution guaranteed that there shall be no inter-provincial restriction on the wheat movement.
He said that donor agencies had given loans for agriculture sector with conditions that there would be no ban on the transportation of wheat and other food items to other provinces.
He said the matter had been discussed at all fora and Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani had personally taken up the issue with the prime minister, but he did not get any positive response.
He alleged that some elements had purchased wheat in Punjab to create an artificial shortage in the country. He said the Punjab government had framed baseless charges that wheat was being smuggled out from the NWFP to Afghanistan.
In a related development, flour mill owners of the NWFP have announced launching of a token strike from Wednesday to protest against the ban. The mill owners took out a protest procession in the city on Tuesday and marched towards the Governor's House.
They threatened the Punjab government that if it did not lift the ban on the wheat the flour mill owners would hold a demonstration at Khairabad and block the entry point between the two provinces.
