Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Wednesday hit out at the federal government’s decision to fix wheat’s support price at Rs1,800, rather than Rs2,000, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

In a statement, he said fixing the price at Rs1,800 after having purchased wheat from abroad for Rs2,750 was a joke with the farmers. “Let the Centre fix the wheat’s support price at Rs1,800, but I will not let injustice be done with the farmers of Sindh, and the price will remain at Rs2,000 per mound,” he said categorically. 

He asked the federal government to stop projecting 28 percent increase in wheat’s support price from Rs1,400 per mound to Rs1,800 as 400 percent increase. “Sindh government raised the support price by 42 percent as against the federal government’s 28 percent,” he said, and for the first time in the country’s history wheat’s support price in all the federating units was not the same.  “Prime Minister Imran Khan is to blame for this act of cruelty on the farmers of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan,” PPP chairman said, and added after increasing the prices of fertilizers, agricultural machinery, seeds, pesticides, electricity and fuel by 150 percent, fixing the wheat’s support price at Rs1, 800 per mound was surely an act of cruelty with the farmers. 

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He claimed the Centre was adamant on fixing the price at Rs1,600 per mound, and it was only when PPP protested that it decided to increase it to Rs1, 800 per mound. 

Bilawal accused the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government of twice creating the wheat crisis during the last three years of its stay in office. “There will be no wheat hoarding in Sindh this year just like there was no wheat hoarding last year,” he said emphatically. 

PPP chairman said it was the federal government’s poor planning that only two to two-and-a-half weeks of wheat stock was left in the country. 

He warned the government of another wheat crisis developing in the country if the wheat shortage was not overcome on time.  

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Accusing the wealthy and rich in PTI for the last year’s wheat crisis, Bilawal asked Prime Minister Imran Khan to inquire from ‘investors’ in his party as to why they created an artificial crisis in the county by transporting wheat to Afghanistan. “They will get all the answers to their questions,” he said. PPP chairman said it was a shame that a wheat-growing country was now importing it. 

He was of the view that one of the reasons for the country’s poor economic situation was that the present rulers did not have any knowhow about agriculture sector. “PPP government had made a wheat importing country a wheat exporting country in just one year,” he claimed.