Daily Times

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday shed the light on the importance of regular contact and coordination between the federal and provincial governments to cope with the prevailing challenge of locusts attack and said the government was determined to provide all possible resources to get rid of this menace.

Chairing a high-level meeting to review measures for saving the crops from locusts attack, he said the federal government was aware of the issue and dealing with the threat through all possible means.

The meeting was attended by Minister for National Food Security Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, Finance Advisor Dr Abdul Hafiz Shaikh, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) chairman and high officials. In addition, the chief ministers of the four provinces also participated in the meeting through video-link.

The National Food Security secretary briefed the prime minister about the various steps taken regarding the elimination of locusts.

The meeting was told that various inter-departmental and inter-provincial coordination, surveillance, control and awareness committees had been constituted under the national action plan for the elimination of locusts.

The meeting was informed that besides those steps, apex committees had been constituted, control room in NDMA had also been set up while teams at district level had also been constituted to deal with the threat.

The National Food Security secretary informed the meeting about the ongoing cooperation with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and China in that regard. The finance secretary told the meeting that required funds had been provided to the NDMA to take necessary steps about locusts’ elimination.

The meeting was told that besides other provinces special attention was being given to Balochistan province to get rid of locust attack.

The chief ministers exchanged various proposals to the prime minister about the locusts situation, provision of the required funds by the provinces in that regard and to tackle with the issue.