LAHORE, Sept 16: The federal government has decided to maintain 1.5 million tons of strategic wheat reserves in order to ensure food security in the country.

According to the Punjab Food Department sources, Passco has been ordered to keep around 800,000 tons, Sindh 200,000 tons and the Punjab 500,000 tons in their stock.

"This is a policy shift; the government used to empty its stores every year and start new season with zero stocks," says one of the officials. The government has now started differentiating between the operational stocks and strategic reserves. The strategic reserves would be rotated but they would be maintained at every cost, he added.

He said in addition to these stocks, the government would be maintaining operational stocks and continue procuring wheat every year through its agencies as usual. The Punjab Food Department has already prepared a summary in this regard and waiting for the chief minister's approval to execute the strategic reserves plan, he maintained.

Meanwhile, the Punjab government also announced on Thursday a Ramazan package and decided to provide four million additional bags of flour during the holy month. This would be around 100,000 tons of additional releases during the month.

Last year, the government provided around three million bags with 75,000 tons additional wheat releases. Punjab Food Minister Chaudhry Muhammad Iqbal claimed that the additional supplies would help stabilize the flour price which otherwise was increasing in the open market. He also pledged that the government would not make any compromise on the issue of quality and price of flour in the province.