The food and agriculture ministry has proposed that the federal government must keep 21 out of 37 wings of the ministry, while 13 should be devolved to provinces and three be operated jointly.
In a presentation to the Implementation Commission on 18th Amendment recently, the food ministry officials also mentioned the reasons why they wanted to keep most of the wings with the centre.
One such area is related to coordination and planning in respect of food production and supplies. The ministry wants to keep this wing in order to ensure equitable distribution of grains and making available public sector goods and services to all stakeholders without discrimination.
The second area that the ministry wants to keep with the centre is monitoring of food supplies, including storage, to ensure food security. It has also asked for administrative control over Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Supplies Corporation (Passco).
Besides, the centre should purchase foodgrains, including sugar, for federal requirements, for inter-provincial supplies, for export and storage. This will help maintain equitable supplies across provinces. It should also have control over import and export of foodgrains and foodstuff in order to maintain food supply before and after domestic production.
The centre should also keep with itself functions like inspection and grading of foodgrains and foodstuffs and maintenance of quality standards for import and export. The ministry has said the federal government should also prepare a basic plan for bulk allocation of foodgrains and foodstuff which will help increase profitability of the agriculture sector by rationalising input and output prices.
Coordination of work relating to food aid and assistance being received from donor agencies and agricultural research has also been recommended to be kept with the federal government to ensure equitable supplies across provinces.
The centre should keep doing plant protection work including standardisation and import of pesticides and locust control.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 22nd, 2011.
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