Provincial Govts Likely To Announce Wheat Release Policy By Next Week

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Sep, 2021 ) :Provincial governments are likely to unveil their wheat release policy by next week (Monday), which would help bringing stability in the prices of the commodity and flour in local markets across the country, besides reducing the pressure on private wheat market.

"The intervention of public sector will help in bringing stability in prices of wheat and flour by bridging the gap between demand and supply, besides discouraging the artificial hoarding and black marketing of the commodity in local markets," said food Security Commissioner Imtiaz Ali Gopang.

Talking to APP here on Friday, he said that announcement of wheat release policy by the provincial governments would not only help reduce the pressure from the private sector stocks but would also discourage artificial shortage and hoarding of the commodity by certain elements who have been involved in creating gap between demand and supply of the commodity and price fluctuations.

So far, he said that only Punjab Province has declared its wheat release policy for current season and announced the release prices of the commodity, besides fixing ex-mill and retail prices of flour and other products.

Punjab Government has announced its wheat release scheme for the period under review and fixed wheat price at Rs1950 per 40 kg, adding that other province have also finalized their polices as according to their market mechanism, which would be deliberated in the meeting of Wheat Review Committee, he added.

Meanwhile, the Punjab Government has fixed ex-mill rate of 20 kg flour bag at Rs1,975 and retail price of 20 kg flour bag at Rs1,100, he said adding that it has also asked its authorities concerned to remain vigilante and take stern action against those involved in artificial price hike.

Imtiaz Ali said that the Wheat Review Committee are scheduled to meet here on September 27 (Monday) and provincial governments including Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would communicate about their respective wheat release schemes to the committee by September 25, 2021, he added.

Giving the details of current wheat stocks, the Commissioner said that over 6.479 million tons of wheat available for domestic consumption as compared the stocks of 5.344 million of same period of last year, adding that Punjab has established 337 Sahulat Bazars and so far, supplied 4,859,715 bags of wheat flour at the subsidized rate of Rs430 per 10 Kg bag.

Additionally, the private sector has so far, procured 2.784 million metric tons and after grinding, a quantity of 0.842 million tons is still in balance, he added.

The Food Security Commissioner said that public stock is sufficient to cater for the civic requirement of 162 releasing days.