ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Monday accused the government of pursuing flawed, short-sighted and agenda-driven policies, plunging the national economy and agriculture in a total mess.
“All the key sectors of the country that were performing significantly better under the PTI government are today in deep trouble. The economy has come to a grinding halt due to the anti-people and anti-farmer policies,” charged the party’s information secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram in a statement.
He claimed that agriculture was in deep distress and severely paralysed. He warned that unless immediate, comprehensive, and practical policy corrections were made, Pakistan risked not only a decline in wheat production but also a looming and severe food security crisis in the near future.
He alleged that power grabbers and their connected elite appeared detached from the harsh ground realities faced by ordinary citizens and farmers, while those who fed the nation were left struggling for survival.
He warned that Pakistan’s farmers were once again at a breaking point. The PTI spokesman said across the country, the deepening wheat crisis and the grave challenges faced by farmers were posing serious risks to the agricultural economy.
In the current season, uncertainty in wheat pricing, flawed government procurement arrangements, unavailability of gunny bags, and the growing dominance of middlemen in markets have financially paralyzed growers, he said.
“Despite the announcement of a support price of Rs3,500, this rate does not reflect the actual cost of production because the per-acre cost of wheat cultivation, driven by unprecedented increases in fertilizers, seeds, pesticides, water charges, diesel, harvesting, and threshing, has risen massively,” he added.
With an average yield of 45 maunds per acre, he pointed out the farmers could recover only around Rs150,000, resulting in a direct loss of approximately Rs60,000 per acre. He regretted that instead of ensuring direct and timely government procurement, the Punjab government has shifted to a new model under which 11 private companies were tasked with wheat purchasing.
Waqas noted that these companies had been provided extraordinary facilitation, including access to hundreds of government warehouses, billions of rupees worth of gunny bags, subsidized bank financing with 70% interest borne by the government, and a guaranteed profit margin.
However, he contended that despite that, the procurement centers remained either non-functional or too few in number, forcing farmers, particularly in South Punjab, to sell their produce to middlemen at Rs. 2,800-2,900 per maund.
He expressed alarm over the situation, saying the lack of transparency in gunny bag distribution allowed influential individuals to get priority while small and medium farmers were left empty-handed after long wait.
Strict and impractical procurement conditions, including unrealistic moisture and purity limits, arbitrary deductions, and the mandatory Kisan Card requirement held by only a few farmers, he noted, had effectively excluded a large number of genuine growers from the official system.
Meanwhile, Waqas blasted the regime for not shifting PTI founder Imran Khan and his spouse Bushra Bibi to the Shifa International Hospital for proper medical care under supervision of their personal doctors. He also criticized the authorities for not allowing meetings with lawyers, family members, and political leadership despite repeated court’s orders.
