LAHORE, Feb 11: Governor Khalid Maqbool said on Saturday the government had increased the monthly sugar quota of the Utility Stores Corporation from 11,000 ton to 22,000 ton to ensure provision of the commodity to people at reasonable prices in the next few days.
The government would not allow shortage of sugar in the open market, he said while presiding over a meeting of the representatives of the sugar mills owners association, traders and the USC officials.
The governor directed the USC officials to increase the number of their sale points, establish counters at Sunday Bazaars and take sugar in trucks to all backward areas and localities of cities so that people could buy it without any hassle.
He asked the officials to open 30 utility stores and establish seven additional sale points in different localities of Lahore. Another direction was to introduce mobile sale points in five localities of the city, which had no utility store.
The governor said the increase in the sugarcane price in the international market had also benefited Pakistani farmers, who were being paid Rs75 per maund instead of Rs55 per maund.
He said to avoid any crisis in future the owners of sugar mills must cooperate with sugarcane growers on a large scale so that they could increase per-acre yield with the best quality seeds, fertilizers and pesticides.
The meeting was earlier informed that sugarcane was sown this year on 200,000 acres less than the last year, reducing the production of the commodity from 53.8 million ton to 45 million ton.
This year only 2.4 million ton sugar could be produced against its annual consumption of four million ton.
And to meet this shortage, the Trading Corporation of Pakistan had stocks of 750,000 ton sugar. The private sector, too, had made arrangements for importing 200,000 ton sugar.
Meanwhile, presiding over another meeting on the procurement of wheat in the coming season, Mr Maqbool said the government would purchase all the stocks.
The meeting assessed the existing wheat stocks of PASSCO and the private sector and reviewed facilities, which the government would provide to farmers during the procurement season.