The shortage of food supply, particularly wheat, in Pakistan, may lead the country to anarchy as reported by The Pakistan Military Monitor (PMM). After being severely hit by flood last year, this year too seems lethargic for the neighbour state as people are dying of hunger.
The current state of Pakistan seems like inviting famine in the coming days but all that government is worried about is maintaining bilateral relationships with China and giving Dragon all it wants to keep on going with its expansionist policy. The ongoing picture depicts the phenomenon of how the poor battle inflation and remain deprived for months while the government puts a deaf ear to the common public.
For a society, the pain of a calamity is most enduring when it hits the weakest section. Stricken by misery, the vulnerable ones take a long time to recoup, and the food crisis is making the future of the country’s poor look hopeless, reported PMM.
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The paucity translates into high prices of staple grain which are scaling new highs every week. As per the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, there was a 47.2 per cent rise in prices on a year-on-year basis for the week ending April 19, 2023.
In social media, videos appearing almost every day are testimony to the severity of the present crisis, reported PMM. The Pakistani media is bombarding tragic stories of stampedes coming from different provinces of the country. The recent video that surfaced on social media was of a flour-carrying truck on which hundreds were hung and many were running after. This is how the state is running for food. Several deaths have been reported from different parts of Pakistan owing to the scarcity of grain or stampedes and other chaos for food that supposedly is the basic right of a human being.
A report from the World Food Programme (WFP) says that the price of wheat has increased by 74 per cent during the last year alone. The high inflation rate has put this most common cereal farther away from the pockets of the poor class of society. Even the middle class also seems to struggle to make ends meet.
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The adversity doesn’t stop here, with the disaster-hit state battling inflation, corruption has got new wings. A case was recently registered against 11 persons including officials involved in distribution for stealing 8,000 bags of flour in Chiniot of Punjab province. Some counterfeit tokens were also found at the local flour distribution centre.
The government has got to blame low agricultural yield and the Russia-Ukraine crisis for this famine-like situation while they’re tight-lipped over corruption and black-marketing.
Pakistan might feel satiated over what Chinese officials said for the state but they need to understand that borrowing from China and letting them invest on their own terms will do no good to them because Dragon barely misses a chance to make an expansion and people turn into mere preys thereafter.
