LAHORE, Dec 7: The Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA) on Sunday urged the government to import at least one million tons of wheat.

According to Bilal Sufi of the PFMA, the association had taken up the issue with the federal Wheat Disposal Committee.

The PFMA, he said, felt that the country was facing a shortage of over one million tons of wheat which it must import in time. A timely decision would be crucial in this regard, he maintained.

The Wheat Disposal Committee had decided that Passco (Pakistan Agriculture Services and Storage Corporation) would import 500,000 tons of wheat with the permission of ECC (Economic Coordination Committee).

Another official of the PFMA claimed that it took almost six weeks to import wheat from the West. The government was expecting a wheat crunch from the middle of this month which would assume the proportions of a crisis in the first quarter of next year.

Talking about the possibility of wheat import in the private sector, he said that the private sector had checked the world market after withdrawal of import duty and found that imported wheat would cost around Rs14,000 a ton as against the local market rate of Rs12,000. The international price of wheat is hovering around $170 per ton while transportation will cost another $35.

About the possibility of importing wheat from India, he said that Indian wheat suffered from a disease called “Kernel Brunt” and was not safe for human consumption. When Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee offered wheat to Afghanistan some two years ago, Pakistan did not even allow its passage through its territory.

About the price factor, he said that Indian wheat would cost around Rs11,500 per ton if brought by road. However, Pakistan considered road transportation unsafe, and by ship it would cost almost the same as from other countries.

An official of the Punjab Food Department maintained that the department had a consistent position on the issue. It considered itself safe if the other three provinces could take care of themselves. But there was a crisis in other provinces, which would naturally affect the Punjab supplies. In order to play safe, the federal government should import wheat so that it could absorb any unexpected and unforeseen shock, he said.

He supported the version of the private sector that any decision should be taken in time to derive the maximum benefit out of it. The government was well aware of the importance of quantity and timeframe factors for an import order, he said.