Bilawal slams Centre over wheat purchase price

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari slammed the federal government for raising the purchase price of wheat from Rs1,400 to Rs1,800 instead of Rs2,000. “The federal government may keep a subsidy price of Rs1,800 for wheat, but the PPP would not allow oppression of farmers in Sindh and the relief price will be Rs2,000 as PPP 's government is synonymous with food security,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that the government should stop lying about declaring 28 percent increase in the subsidy price of wheat from the old price of Rs1,400 to Rs1800 as 400 percent. He said Sindh has increased the purchase price to Rs2000 which is an increase of 42 percent. He said that today, for the first time in the history of the country, the support price of wheat is not the same in all the provinces.

Bilawal said Prime Minister Imran Khan is responsible for this oppression on the farmers of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. He said the prices of everything from fertilizers, seeds and pesticides to agricultural machinery, electricity have gone up by 150 percent and an increase in wheat subsidy of Rs1,800 is an injustice to farmers.

Bilawal also said that the federal government wanted the purchasing price of wheat to be Rs1600 but when the PPP fought for the farmers, the federal government increased the price a little. He reminded the people that the federal government created two wheat crises in three years.

Bilawal Bhutto sharply criticised Imran Khan's government and said that it is a result of the poor plan of the PTI government that today only two to two and a half weeks of wheat stock is left in the country. “If the crisis is not dealt with, the country may once again face a shortage of flour,” he said, adding that the wheat crop landed in Punjab in May last year and more than 10 million tonnes of wheat disappeared in July in Punjab. He said Imran Khan should ask his friends how the artificial crisis was created by smuggling wheat to Afghanistan.

Bilawal said that it is a shame that Pakistan, a wheat producing country, is importing wheat from abroad today. He said that one of the reasons for the devastation of the economy is that the ruler of the agricultural country of Pakistan is unfortunately not even familiar with the alphabets of the word 'agriculture'.

Bilawal, referring to the self-sufficiency of wheat in the PPP government (2008-13), said that the PPP federal government had made the country a wheat exporting country in just one year. He said the PPP government had increased relief price by 47% in the first year and 52% in the second year.