LAHORE: Federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry has blazoned that Afghan exchanges carrying wheat from India through Pakistan to the war-torn country would be allowed to pass risk-free.
Islamabad has completed arrangements to grease the force of wheat by India to Afghanistan on philanthropic grounds and assigned the customs department to ensure hassle-free formalities. Under the arrangement, 60 exchanges would reach Wagah Border (Lahore) from Afghanistan to further travel to Attari (India) and collect the first consignment of wheat from Indian authorities.
“ Under the government’s decision, we won’t charge any duty/ duty from the Afghan authorities on the collection of wheat from India at the Attari border,” an elderly customs sanctioned told Dawn on Monday.
The Indian government has entered into an agreement with an Afghanistan- grounded logistics company that would be liable to shoot empty exchanges via the Torkham border (Peshawar) to Wagah (Lahore). When entering Pakistan at Torkham, the authorities would carry out a detailed security check of the exchanges.
“ At Attari, the Indian authorities would grease the unloading of wheat bags from their exchanges and loaded onto the Afghan vehicles. The Afghan exchanges would also return to the Wagah border where Pakistan Rangers would carry out a detailed security check and the customs authorities check the commodity. After concurrence, the exchanges would be dispatched for Afghanistan via Torkham where they would be checked again,” the officer explained.
In reply to a question, he said the Afghan exchanges would start collecting wheat (an aggregate of tonnes) from Feb 22 and the entire exercise would take a month.
He further said the Afghan authorities had participated in the details of individualities of motorists ( passports, identity cards, etc), the kind of exchanges, their manufacturing company, capacity, enrollment number, and other documents with the foreign ministry as well as the separate authorities in India.
“ We’ve also conveyed to the Afghan authorities to ensure the installation of shadowing bias in all exchanges using the Pakistan home. The motorists would also be issued temporary authorization instruments by the customs authorities ( conveyance trade department) at Torkham. The authorities would telegraph the barcode on the instruments to the customs authorities at Wagah after checking of which the exchanges would be allowed
to cross the border,” the functionary said.
On their way to Afghanistan, the motorists would have to return the instruments to the authorities at Torkham, he added.
To another question, the officer said the convoys would be handed acceptable security by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab police on their way to and from Torkham.
When communicated, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said the civil press had formerly permitted India to shoot tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan. “ In fact, we allowed India to shoot wheat to the people of war-torn Afghanistan on philanthropic grounds,” he said.
“ When we’re asking the whole world to help the Afghan people, how can we stop India from doing so?”
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The minister claimed that Pakistan had originally blocked transportation of Indian wheat because it carried some complaints and had asked New Delhi for its instrument.
