20000313

Food Ministry

mum over

wheat quota

increase demand

LAHORE: The Federal Ministry of Food has adopted indifferent attitude on the provinces' demand for increase in their wheat quota, an official source said here on Sunday.

The provinces renewed their old demand for raise in the wheat quota on the average rate of 146-kg per head from the existing 124-kg. The quota system was introduced in 1970 and it had not been revised since then.

The provinces in support of their demand stated that per capita consumption of wheat has gone up besides the increase in population. Therefore, the upward revision of wheat quota was necessary to meet the growing requirements of the provinces.

Source said that the federal government could not meet the renewed demand of the provinces as it would have to import additional three to four million tonnes of wheat. The government is already spending a sizeable amount on the import of around three million tonnes wheat each year and the meagre foreign exchange reserves does not allow additional import of wheat.

Presently, 20 to 21 million tonnes of wheat is required to meet country's annual consumption. In addition to this, one million tonnes of wheat is required for the reserve and 0.6 million tonnes for supply to Afghanistan. If the quota is revised, the government will have to arrange 23 to 24 million tonnes of wheat which is formidable task under the current scenario.

Growing more wheat in the future can bridge this gap. Support price of wheat, which could help the government in achieving this task, was not reaching down to the actual growers.

Sources said during the last five years, the country had spent a sizeable amount of Rs 79.40 billion on the import of wheat only and no effort had been made to improve per acre yield of wheat and increase its support price according to the requirement.

In 1997-98, Pakistan set a record by spending $712 million on import of 4.10 million tonnes of wheat to meet domestic and Afghanistan's food requirements.ÑPPI