April 10, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 3, 1429

RAWALPINDI, April 9: The Punjab has sufficient wheat stock to meet daily requirement of 17,000 tons.

A senior official of Food Department while talking to Dawn on Wednesday said the province had 300,000 tons of wheat stock, therefore, there should be no cause for alarm.

Explaining the current wheat situation in the province, the Food Department official said that the federal government had imported 1.8 million tons of wheat this year to meet the shortfall, and the Punjab received its share of 400,000 tons of imported wheat.

The government was subsidising the cost of imported wheat whose landed cost ranged from Rs1,000 to Rs15,000. In contrast, the issue price to flour mills had been fixed at Rs465 per maund, he said.

Harvesting of wheat during the current Rabi season is expected to begin later this month in the Punjab while in Sindh it has started.

For Food Department, April to September is the buying period, while September to April is issuing period. After April 15, mill owners will buy wheat from open market where price for the new crop would range between Rs625 to Rs700 against the official support price of Rs465.

Enough stock of wheat has been reserved in the Punjab to meet any possible shortfall, he said. The new government has raised the support price to Rs625.

When mill owners will buy wheat from open market after April 30, it is obvious that they will pass on the rising cost on to the consumers, eventually increasing the price of wheat flour (atta).

Though the chances of shortage of atta are minimal, it is certain that the price of atta would increase no less than by Rs3 to Rs5 per kg in the market.

The Food Department official claimed that the Department was closely monitoring the situation and would not allow artificial shortages or hoarding of the wheat flour.

The month of May would be a difficult month for the government as the price of wheat flour would be different from the prevailing price.

The network of Utility Stores Corporation from where the government supplies wheat flour to the public on subsidised rate is not fully geared up to yield the pressure of consumers. At the same time, the district governments need to make arrangements to open fair price shops for the supply of wheat flour at subsidised rates.

The administration in Rawalpindi plans to double the number of fair price shops to 300 this month, but this may not be enough to take load of the general public.

Regarding the inter-provincial movement of wheat, the Food Department official said the Department was issuing permits on a daily basis for the transportation of wheat to NWFP.

On Wednesday, 20 permits were issued as against 17 permits on Tuesday. The wheat for NWFP was being purchased from open market and the share of 400,000 tons of imported wheat for the Punjab remains unaffected, he said. The share of NWFP from the imported wheat was 350,000 tons.