ISLAMABAD.; Finally, after a gap of around 6 months, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has increased wheat support price to Rs 1800 per 40 kg.
Its not only a much much delayed decision rather another precedent of bad decision for which this poor nation will pay now . The decision has come at a time when damage to Pakistan has already been done as the growers did not give priority to wheat sowing in October-November (sowing season) last year when prime minister, Imran Khan, instead taking a wise decision maginally revised wheat support price .
The PTI government despite repeated calls of the growers did not accept their demand to increase wheat support price to Rs 1800 or even more by Rs 50 per 40 kg so that the crop becomes a priority for the farmers to grow on more area and help the government meet domestic consumption for a year.
Hafeez Shaikh, the prime minister’s advisor on Finance and Revenue , remained a tumbling block in accepting the farmers demand. The farmers representatives reminded the prime minister, Imran Khan and his advisor, Abdul Hafeez Shaikh ,that even revised wheat support price of Rs 1650 for 40 kg does not meet cost of production of the farmers and in such a case why would they grow this crop.
“We were telling the government much before start of sowing season last year that it should reasonablly increase wheat support price to make the crop a priority to the growers to get enhanced production to meet increasing domestic consumption , but its decision- makers simply turned deaf ear to our demand and today Pakistan is deficient in production and its dependence on import of wheat has inrcreased substantially”, Farmers Association of Pakistan (FAP) director , Rabia Sultan said in her exclusive talk with NEWSMAN on Friday.
Rabia deplored that the government set a bad precedent by increasing support price now in March when harvesting has already begun in Sindh. She argued that the same support price announcement in September last year could have benefitted the country in the form of more production and self reliance, besides injecting additional two to three hundred billions rupee in agro economy. This additional income could make the farmers prosperous and happy, but it did not happen due to wrong approach of Imran Khan led PTI government and its advisor on Finance.
Every individual in Pakistan knew that sowing was the best time for announcement of upward revised wheat support price, but prime minister, Imran Khan and his Finance advisor , Hafeez Shaikh , were ignorant of it.
Will anybody ask these two gentlemen (Imran Khan and Hafeez Shaikh) who will benefit from ill-timed upward revision in wheat support price?
For the information of these two, it will be the middleman and not the farmers as latter do not have capacity to hold produce indefinately.
These two also need to be questioned by this poor nation as to what would be the cost of import of wheat that their policy wizards are planning to import to plug the huge gap of over 3 million tons in demand and supply of the commodity.
The poor Pakistani nation also needs to ask their intellectual prime minister who will pay hundred of billions to be spent on import of wheat.
