LAHORE: Punjab Food Minister Samiullah Chaudhry says his department has successfully reduced its wheat inventories, which have been causing a huge financial cost to the provincial expenditure.

“We’ve sold out in the local market the excess wheat stock being carried over for the last five years,” Mr Chaudhry told participants in a food safety seminar organised by the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) in collaboration with the PepsiCo Pakistan here on Tuesday.

He said as the government did not have funds to subsidise export of the commodity, it managed to release the excess wheat from its godowns in the local market. He would not elaborate how did the local market absorbed the surplus release but said that the revenue so generated was used to retire Rs111.6 billion of the over Rs460 bank loans used for procuring the grains.

He said they were now retaining only 1.7 metric ton wheat as strategic stock.

The food department floated tenders for export of 0.25m tons of fair quality wheat two months ago. But it received poor response as the highest bid it received was $219 per ton against the international market price of $240 per ton.

Mr Chaudhry also claimed that their government had paid almost 100 per cent of the past dues to sugarcane growers owed by the sugar mills while payments for the just ending season had gone over 80 percent with the remaining amount to be paid within a couple of weeks.

He said growers were paid the official rate of Rs180 per 40 kg and in some cases Rs220/40kg as 10 mills flouting the rules were fined Rs5.2 million and middlemen Rs9.1 million while at least 700 first information reports were also registered.

The minister said that this year they would procure more wheat than the previous year and the process would start from April 22.

PCSIR Chairman Dr Shahzad Alam said food safety is a serious issue needing efforts of all stakeholders as at least 60 million people fell sick by eating poor quality food.

PepsiCo CEO Furqan Ahmed Syed, Punjab Food Authority Director General Usman, PCSIR DG Dr Quratul Ain and others also spoke.

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2019