New Power, agriculture policies to be announced soon: Gilani

LAHORE : Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has said that the government would soon announce new power and agriculture policies to overcome the electricity shortfall and food crises. He was talking to newspapers editors at State Guest House here on Sunday.
Under the power policy, steps for energy conservation, construction of small dams, installation of power plants and other such measures would be taken, he added.
“ We are making effort to resolve the energy crises at the minimum possible time”, he said adding, one or two years would be required to completely get rid of the electricity problem.
The Prime Minister recalled that PPP government faced worst criticism on Independent Power Producers (IPPs) issue in 1994-95 despite the fact the IPPs have helped the country a lot to meet its power demand.
He said that small power generation units would be installed at suitable sites in the hilly areas including Kashmir. The provinces would also be allowed to tap the power generation potential with them, he added.
The Prime Minister said that under the new agriculture policy steps would be taken for the promotion of livestock in the country on revolutionary basis and to overcome the shortage of food items.
He said, the government has allowed import of 2.5 million tonnes of wheat against the demand of shortfall of just one million, therefore, there would be no wheat crises in the country.
He praised the efforts of Punjab government to control the wheat movement through administrative steps.
“Increase in POL prices and shortage of food items are the two major challenges which the whole world is facing at present but Pakistan being an agriculture country would be in an advantageous position and focus on increasing its agriculture production”, he said.
To a question, he admitted that PASSCO could not achieve its wheat procurement target so far adding that other procurement departments have achieved 80% of their target in the whole.