India will send 50,000 tonne of wheat as humanitarian aid to Afghanistan starting February 22, 2022. The wheat consignments from Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns will be transported to Afghanistan using Pakistan territory, through the Attari-Wagah border.
The wheat stocks have been procured during the 2020-21 rabi marketing season.
This is for the first time that foodgrains are being transported as aid through the Attari-Wagah border; on the earlier occasions, such consignments were sent via the Kandla port. The World Food Programme will coordinate the distribution of wheat in Afghanistan.
It is expected that the transportation of the entire 50,000 tonne of wheat will take about four weeks to complete. Pakistan has given the necessary clearances for the trucks from Afghanistan to use its territory for taking back India’s foodgrain aid.
India has provided foodgrains (rice and wheat) as humanitarian assistance to various countries including Afghanistan, DPR Korea, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe since 2010-11. In 2020-21, India sent 74,830 tonne of wheat to Afghanistan as aid, and 1.1 lakh tonne in 2017-18.
To ensure food security in the South Asian region, India through FCI held a stock of 3.06 lakh tonne of foodgrains out of the total 4.86 lakh tonne SAARC food bank.
The FCI, in collaboration with the state agencies, procure paddy and wheat from farmers mostly from Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, through MSP operations.
The highly-subsidised food grains procured from farmers are supplied under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) to more than 80 crore beneficiaries, as well as kept as buffer stocks for dealing with exigencies.