Prime Minister’s Advisor for Industries Muhammad Basharat Raja said that the Government is well aware of the urgency in demand of fertiliser and proposing the import and distribution of urea. Talking about the distribution mechanism of fertiliser, Basharat said that even if fertiliser was imported by the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP), the distribution of the imported fertiliser falls in the purview of MoI and the Ministry has no intentions to use it as a political lever and distribute it in a preferential manner.
The Advisor said that the import and distribution of fertiliser would be a fair and transparent process and all the rules and procedures will be strictly adhered to. He stressed that with the advent of information age and under the watchful eye of the vigilant media in Pakistan, transparency in governance has greatly increased and there is no room for speculation now. Basharat said the perception that the federal government had any intentions to maneuver fertiliser distribution in Punjab to malign the provincial government and win over political opponents, is wrong.
He said that the availability of fertiliser is a matter of life and death for a great number of people and stressed that this issue should not be used for political point scoring as urea will be available to every farmer irrespective of his party affiliation. He said that agriculture is the mainstay in Pakistan’s economy and the government would formulate pro-farmer policies to support agriculture in the country.