ISLAMABAD, Nov 17 (APP):Minister for National Food Security and Research Tariq Bashir Cheema on Thursday said the federal cabinet in its meeting on Friday is likely to approve the minimum support price of wheat.
Responding to the point of order in the National Assembly, he said the government had decided to announce the minimum support price of wheat after getting federal cabinet’s nod through circulation but some members of the cabinet emphasised that the support price should be discussed and fix in a meeting of the federal cabinet to be held on Friday.
He said the government procures only 20 percent of total produced wheat while 80 percent wheat was procured by the private sector.
Floods have also played havoc with agriculture sector and efforts were underway to meet domestic need of agriculture products.
He admitted that the successive governments have miserably failed to do justice with the agriculture sector.
He said agriculture sector was a devolved subject but federal government was duty bound to ensure food security.
The federal government has already fulfilled the wheat demands of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan province.
Regretting the delay in implementation of Kissan Package 2022, he said the package would be implemented within next few days after resolving some
issues.
He said the government has decided to convert over 290,000 agriculture tube wells to solar power in order to solve the load shedding problem.A workable
solution was being devised to ensure early solarisation of agri tubewells in collaborations with banks.
