LAHORE   -   Punjab Speaker Assembly Ch Parvez Elahi has termed the recent nominal increase in support price of wheat a joke with the farmers saying that it will have a negative impact on the wheat production in Punjab. 

“The government has increased the wheat support price only by Rs 200 per maund; whereas, in the open market, the wheat is selling at Rs 2,400 per maund,” he regretted in a statement. 

The PML leader demanded that the wheat support price be fixed at a minimum of Rs 2,000 per maund if Punjab wanted to be self-sufficient in wheat. He warned that farmers will be forced to cultivate some other crop if the government did not take care of them. He maintained that the support price fixed by the government was not enough to meet the sowing expenses of farmers. “What will the farmers save and what will they eat if the support price remains at current level?” he asked. 

Ch Parvez Elahi said that this price of wheat will not be acceptable to the farmers in any case. “80 percent of the population feeds the country with food-grains but currently this segment is facing a grave economic crisis,” he observed, adding that farmers should get a good price of their produce. 

He argued that Rs 1,600 per maund support price of wheat was just not enough to meet the expenses of sowing. “If the government did not provide relief to the farmers, it could trigger a wheat crisis next year,” he warned, adding that frequent increase in prices of fertilizers, petrol, diesel and medicines had made the lives of farmers miserable. He said farmers will start cultivating fodder and vegetables if the current situation prevailed. He said importing costly wheat from abroad amounted to hitting the stomach of the farmer. 

PML leaders condemn Peshawar blast

Pakistan Muslim League (PML) President and former Prime Minister Ch Shujat Hussain, Speaker Punjab Assembly Ch Parvez Elahi and MNA Moonis Elahi have expressed their heartfelt sorrow and grief over martyrdom of students in explosion in a madrasahs in Peshawar.

Expressing their strong condemnation, PML leaders said that enemy forces will never succeed in their contemptible objectives. “We share the sorrow of bereaved families of students martyred in the explosion”. They said that enemies of humanity should be taken to task at the earliest and immediate best treatment be provided to the injured persons.