LAHORE, July 15: Punjab is said to have decided to withdraw ban on inter-provincial movement of wheat on the assurance of the federal government that it would take effective measures to secure the borders to prevent smuggling of the commodity.

The decision is expected to be notified in the next couple of days, according to sources in the provincial food department.

Sources in the food department maintain that Punjab had certain reservations about the way other provinces were handling wheat movement across the national borders. Punjab’s fears, they claimed, were based on a credible information that wheat was being smuggled out of the country.

“This situation rang food security bells because of precarious wheat stocks position in the province,” they said and added: “Had wheat been taken out of the province alone, Punjab might not have reacted the way it did. But taking it out of the country is a serious matter that could hike the price to an unreasonable level and exert pressure on the food security of the province, and, by extension, of the country.”

Wheat, the sources said, was going to the Central Asian states through Afghanistan where even the entire stocks of Pakistan cannot satisfy the demand. “These fears had necessitated monitoring of wheat movement.”

Precisely for these reasons, the sources said, Punjab had established a monitoring system to check heavy smuggling of wheat out of the country. “Now the federal government has accepted the validity of Punjab’s fears and assured it of securing the borders against any smuggling. So, there is no need to continue with the ban and hinder inter-provincial wheat movement.”

The sources, however, said Punjab would not become totally oblivious of the situation because stakes were too high to take such a risk. It would keep an eye on the situation and its surveillance system in place to check if the smuggling attempts continue. Even during the so-called ban period, it did not stop any contract buying from other provinces nor did it stop movement of flour products out of Punjab. It had only checked un-official wheat movement.

They also insisted that no buyer from anywhere in the country was stopped from purchasing wheat during the procurement season. “If they failed to buy wheat then, Punjab should not be held responsible for that now. It does not want to end up importing wheat for meeting its food requirements,” the sources said.