Subsidy: Committee constituted to resolve Gilgit-Baltistan wheat crisis

Committee will meet on April 24 to formulate recommendations which will then be sent to ECC for final approval.

ISLAMABAD: After almost a week of protest, which saw at times business come to a halt in Gilgit-Baltistan, the government on Tuesday constituted a five-member committee under the chairmanship of Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Muhammad Barjees Tahir to resolve the issue of wheat subsidy.

Committee will meet on April 24, 2014 to formulate recommendations which will then be sent to Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) for final approval.

Other members of the committee include Minister for Works Gilgit-Baltistan Bashir Ahmad Khan, and three members of Gilgit-Baltistan Council – Advocate Amjad Hussain, Muhammad Ibrahim and Attaullah Shahab.

Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan said that both the federal government and the Gilgit-Baltistan government were on the same page when it came to the wheat crisis and that both sides are serious about resolving the issue. He said this in a meeting with the Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Syed Mahdi Shah.

The Chief Minister had called on the Federal Minister and apprised him of the crisis due to wheat prices and the pursuing protests.

The Minister assured that the federal government would take every possible step to resolve the crisis.

There were shutter-down strikes across Gilgit-Baltistan last week, while negotiations between the government and Awami Action Committee (AAC) had remained inconclusive on April 17, while shops had started opening, weakening the intensity of the strike.

In hopes of pressuring the government into reinstating the subsidy and reducing the price of wheat, the AAC had threatened to continue the strike unless their demands were met.