KARACHI, Aug 2: Sindh Food and Agriculture Minister Arif Mustafa Jatoi has said that Punjab will lift the ban on inter-provincial movement of wheat in a few days.

Speaking at a press conference here on Monday, the minister said the Punjab chief minister and the food minister had promised him that the section 144 imposed on inter-provincial movement of wheat would be lifted in a few days.

Mr Jatoi pointed out that the Prime Minister had also asked the Punjab government to lift the ban. Mr Jatoi said that during meetings with the Punjab chief minister and the food minister he told them that all the three provinces were wheat deficit and only Punjab had surplus wheat, which in the past used to be distributed among deficit provinces on historical basis.

Quoting statistics, the minister said that Punjab with a population of 84 million was surplus in wheat by 5.684m tons, while Sindh with a population of 33 million was in deficit by 1.892 million tons, Balochistan with a population of seven million was in deficit by 0.168m tons and NWFP with a population of 22m was in deficit by 1.628 million tons.

Meanwhile, Mr Jatoi also nullified the allegations that flour crisis last year was caused by the food department's mismanagement. Explaining the situation, he pointed out that last year Sindh had wheat stock of 0.6 million tons and the federal government had promised to give Sindh's due share from the wheat imported from Australia.

The minister said on this basis, the food department made month-wise releases to flour mills with a view to bring down the prices. He said, Sindh did not get anticipated 0.15m tons of wheat while it kept releasing wheat to mills and, therefore, in February this year its stocks went down to only 2,000 tons that led to wheat crisis.

The minister said that Sindh would try to maintain a stock of 1.2 million tons. "At present the stock position stands at 0.2m tons while it has been agreed with the Pakistan Storage and Supplies Corporation (Passco) for supply of 0.2 million tons." -APP