Punjab Food Authority moves to ensure food security

Provincial Food Department arranges sufficient wheat to ensure availability of flour in major cities across Punjab

LAHORE: In a bid to prepare for a foreseeable lockdown across major cities, the provincial food authority has increased the supply of wheat form surplus districts on an emergency basis to boost the availability of flour in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Gujranwala divisions amidst the pandemic.

The Punjab Food Department, has reduced the usual two-month time period of transferring wheat to transport contractors down to one month, while increasing the fixed quantity of wheat for transfer by 15%. Further, the department has also ordained the Deputy Directors and District Food Controllers across the province to ensure efficient and errorless transfer of the produce.

The department currently has 1.05 million tonnes of wheat in holdover, which should last the province up to 42 days. A fresh yield of wheat will also be available in the market starting April, which will add to Punjab’s wheat reserves.



Details reveal that upon directives of senior government officials, Additional Director Food Muhammad Hussain Khokar and Deputy Director Food Omar Daraz had held a meeting with the contractors on Wednesday. The said meeting was held to discuss prompt transportation of wheat to Gujranwala, Lahore and Rawalpindi divisions from 44 warehouses with surplus wheat in other districts.

Transport contractors were also informed of the government’s plans of a lockdown in the wake of the pandemic’s spread in the country. “In such a situation, it is imperative to ensure the food security of the people and to keep the supply of flour stable, for which the government has decided to increase official wheat stocks in the three major divisions in accordance with the requirements of at least one month.”

At the time of meeting, the Rawalpindi division possessed over 125,000 tonnes of wheat, which is expected to last up to 22 days. Whereas, Gujranwala division had over 20, 000 tonnes which would be sufficient for at least 6 days, while government warehouses in Lahore division had over 70,000 tonnes of wheat which is expected to last for at least 10 days.

Furthermore, during the aforementioned meeting, transporters also informed the food officers about improper practices that have been leading to waste of produce in the past. “Wheat at certain wheat centres is not unloaded properly and vehicles remained parked for several days in certain districts.

While transporters in some districts of Southern Punjab are being forced to provide speed money by deliberately delaying certain documents and issuing bills.”



On the other hand, all transporters present at the meeting demanded the government to uniformly implement the successful model of procedure for wheat delivery and related matters as introduced by Bahawalpur Division Deputy Director Shabbir Alawi in areas and departments under his authority, across all districts.

After hearing the complaints of the transporters, Additional Director Food Muhammad Hussain Khokar issued the required directives by calling deputy directors of wheat delivery in various divisions. In addition to that, Secretary Food Waqas Ali Mehmood and Director Food Wajid Ali Shah shared that there is more than one million tonnes of wheat in government warehouses in the province, which is sufficient for the next 42 days.

“In 10 to 15 days the new yield of wheat will also be available in the market and the department will buy 4.5 million tonnes of wheat, which as per estimate should be sufficient for more than a year’s worth of flour,” they reassured.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24^th, 2020.