April 24, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 17, 1429

ISLAMABAD, April 23: Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has accepted the Afghanistan’s years-old request conditionally to allow it to use the Pakistani soil for the import of Indian wheat amidst fears that the neighbouring country’s wheat infected with a fungal disease may ultimately reach domestic consumers.

Sources told Dawn that during his recent meeting with the Afghan Foreign Minister, Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta, the prime minister had agreed in principle to allow Afghanistan to import wheat from India through the Wagah border.

The move was prompted by the smuggling of 1.7 million tons of wheat to neighbouring countries, particularly Afghanistan from Pakistan this financial year that created flour crisis at the domestic level.

But, the sources said, Pakistan was now calculating the repercussion this decision might

have for domestic consumers as Indian wheat has been infected by Karnal Bunt — a disease found in the Indian state of Haryana since1930s, in which the fungus Tilletia

indica invades the kernels and obtains its nutrition from the endosperm, leaving behind waste products with stinking odour that makes bunted kernels too unpalatable for use in flour.

Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Live-stock (Minfal) Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Wednesday also admitted on the floor of the National Assembly that there were fears that if Afghanistan was allowed to import the fungus-infected Indian wheat through Pakistan it might reach the food chain of domestic consumers.

Because, he continued, that there were no flour mills in Afghanistan and that the neighbouring country depended on the Pakistani mills for grinding its wheat.

In response to a question, the food minister said Pakistan was willing to increase the supply of flour to Afghanistan and wheat/flour to the NWFP but the mode of transportation should be allowed to be monitored properly.

He said this was possible only if wheat/flour was transported to the NWFP through rail and not road, because, he said, road transportation encouraged smuggling and discouraged proper monitoring.

A Minfal official told Dawn that there were three options available to Afghanistan to import the Indian wheat. The first was by transporting it via Wagah Border. This was the cheapest and the easiest.

The second was by getting the grain first discharged at the Iranian ports, which could be subsequently transported by road to Afghanistan.

This option added to the transportation cost of the

grain and was complicated as well.

The third option was by sending the consignment first to a Central Asian state through the Black Sea and then transporting it to Afghanistan from there. But, this was simply not feasible or cost-competitive.

Sources said the Pakistani authorities had started working out modalities that might allow Afghanistan to use Wagah border for importing the Indian wheat but not at the cost of

the health of the Pakistani consumers.