March 26, 2008	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 17, 1429

KARACHI, March 25: The federal government has advised the Sindh government to take harsh administrative steps for wheat procurement from farmers at Rs510 for 40kg.

“We are being advised to impose Section 144, ban wheat movement and take similar administrative steps to force farmers to sell us wheat at the government-fixed support price,” a well-placed and authoritative source in the Sindh government confided to Dawn on Tuesday.

Islamabad’s advice for harsh administrative steps came after the Sindh government reported that farmers in the lower Sindh were reluctant to sell wheat at Rs510 for 40kgs.

“There has been no wheat purchase since March 15 when we officially launched our procurement programme,” the source disclosed.

But instead of obliging Islamabad, the Sindh government is keeping the recently elected political leadership update on the wheat situation and has warned them of the possible crisis that could hit the province and the entire country in the coming months. “Syed Khurshid Shah and a few other politicians have made an inquiry,” another official confided who is confident that the PML-N leadership is equally concerned on the situation and is collecting necessary information.

Officials expect that the political leadership will not take much time to intervene and take prompt remedial measures.

“The PML-N leadership has learnt lessons from the 1997 wheat crisis that emerged immediately after Nawaz Sharif took over as prime minister with two-thirds majority in the House,” said a senior bureaucrat in the Sindh government.

Officials in the Sindh food department reported that wheat was being sold by the lower Sindh farmers at Rs610 to Rs630 for 40kg to businessmen through rural commodity brokers.“Wheat production cost has gone up after fertiliser prices have been pushed up by almost three times in a year,” a leader of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture said from Hyderabad who demanded an official price of Rs700 for 40kg.

He feared that if the government fails to give a realistic support price, the big businessmen will book a huge quantity of wheat and create a shortage of unprecedented magnitude.

Reports of increased wheat prices in neighbouring India, Afghanistan, Central Asia and Iran are also a source of concern for officials as this disparity in prices encourages smuggling. “Pakistan’s international borders with all its neighbouring countries are soft and difficult to be managed, and hence very porous,’’ is one view of the smuggling of commodities either way that is going on for decades.

“Wheat and wheat flour smuggling was the main cause of crisis in 2007-08 season and it may be much more serious in the coming season,” the official warned.

Millers and officials say that the political leadership is all inclined to raise the wheat procurement price to Rs600-570 as against Rs510 for 40kg fixed by the caretaker government. Different task forces and expert groups in two main political parties, the PML-N and the PPP, are said to be engaged in an exercise to work out a strategy for providing wheat flour to urban consumers at affordable prices.

“If the government can give more than $400 million to farmers of foreign countries on wheat import in 2007-08, why can’t it give $150 to 200 million to farmers in Pakistan,” is one justification for raising the support price.

There are all indications that the next government would come out with a wheat policy by April 10 when governments have been settled in federal and provincial capitals.