MUZAFFARABAD (Kashmir English): The government of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) caused loss of billions of rupees to the national exchequer by procuring far more wheat than required during the fiscal year 2022-2023, reveals the Auditor General of Pakistan’s report for the fiscal year 2024-2025.
According to the report, the Azad Kashmir government purchased 315,917 tons of wheat from PASSCO in 2022-2023, whereas there was absolutely no need for such a large quantity of wheat in the region.
According to the Food Department, the total population of Azad Kashmir is 4.31 million, of which 2.5 percent, or 356,250, are children.
Additionally, approximately 1.5 million people reside abroad. Thus, the total population consuming wheat is approximately 2,453,750.
According to international standards, an individual consumes an average of 124 kilograms of wheat flour annually. Based on this, the total annual wheat requirement is 304,265 tons.
Local annual wheat production
Local annual wheat production is 154,754 tons. Therefore, the government should have purchased only 149,511 tons of wheat, but instead, the government purchased 315,917 tons of wheat, which is 166,406 tons more than required, the report elaborated.
The price of PASSCO wheat was Rs 97,000 per ton. Based on this, the cost of 315,917 tons of wheat amounted to over Rs.30 billion.
The value of the excess 166,406 tons of wheat purchased amounts to over Rs 16 billion.
In addition, the government paid PASSCO incidental charges of 6 rupees 82 paisa per kilogram, while 8 rupees 38 paisa were paid for the transportation of wheat and flour, and 2 rupees 39 paisa for milling. In total, these costs amounted to over Rs5 billion.
Thus, the total cost of 315,917 tons of wheat (purchase price, transportation, incidental charges, milling) was over Rs36 billion, while the excess 166,406 tons of wheat alone incurred expenses of over Rs19 billion.
Approximately 10% bran is produced during milling, after which the government sold 284,325 tons of flour.
This flour was sold in 40-kilogram bags at 3,100 rupees per bag. Thus, the total revenue was over Rs 22 billion.
After deducting this revenue from the total cost of Rs 36 billion, a loss of Rs14.17 billion was recorded.
The report acknowledges that some of the flour is also smuggled, but no details or investigation of this were provided.
Despite this loss of billions of rupees, not a single individual has been held accountable so far.
