Lahore, April 30 (IANS). The government of Pakistan's Punjab province led by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz as well as the federal government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif are facing a big challenge from the farmers. Protests against the wheat procurement policy of the government are intensifying, which is also getting support from political parties.
Pakistan Kisan Ittehad (PKI), the party representing the country's agricultural sector including farmers, has criticized the government for failing to meet its commitment to purchase grains and reversing the decision to reduce provincial procurement quota.
The issue has been under discussion between the PKI and the provincial and federal governments for more than a month. But the anti-government campaign of a large number of farmers had not started.
Farmers say they planted wheat crops to meet government needs, knowing that their finished wheat grains would be bought.
Farmers say that their wheat crop is ready, so the government does not want to buy it. Due to rain the crops are rotting in the fields.
On the other hand, the Punjab government has no answer to the demands of the farmers. It appears to have opted to counter the protests by deploying heavy contingents of police and anti-riot squads to prevent protesters from blocking main roads and highways.
The government says it already has at least 23 lakh tonnes of wheat in storage, which shows that it cannot buy 40 lakh tonnes of wheat this season and is blaming it on the caretaker government.
A senior government official in Punjab province said, “The caretaker government has imported about 30 lakh tonnes of wheat, which is more than the province's requirement. This has led to huge carryover stocks and left the capacity very low. That is why The Punjab government decided to halve the procurement target.”
He said, “The caretaker government also introduced a mobile application, which is a new process to apply to the food department to sell wheat. It conveniently ignores the fact that the majority of farmers in the rural population are not aware of it.” Don't know.”
–IANS
FZ/SKP
