Minister for Information Shibli Faraz, after the Cabinet meeting held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Imran Khan, told the media that despite the fact that incidents of rape are on the rise, until now in majority of rape cases the culprits somehow manage to get relief from the courts.
However, now after the implementation of the new law culprits will face heavy penalties up till life imprisonment. The minister said that hopefully incidents of rape and sexual harassment will reduce.
The minister said that the Cabinet also approved the plan to construct IT Parks in Islamabad, Peshawar and Lahore. He said afterwards IT parks will also be constructed in Karachi and Quetta. He said significant increase in the IT exports has been witnessed recently.
Minister for Industries Hammad Azhar said that to control prices of sugar the government has imported 1,25,000 tonnes of sugar. He said this imported sugar has been sold on a controlled rate, due to which the ex-mill and warehouse rate of sugar has declined by Rs 10 to Rs 12 per kg.
He added that the legal framework regarding the crushing season has been formalised. He said this year crushing season of sugar mills started on the right time and in South Punjab all the sugar mills running on the full capacity. He hoped that the prices of sugar will further decline further in coming days.
Minister for National Food Security Khosro Bakhtiar said the price of flour is gradually decreasing. He said the price of 40 kg flour bag has been declined by Rs 200. The minister said the government released 3.1 million tonne of wheat to reducing the demand and supply gap of flour. He admitted that the price of flour is still high in Karachi.
Khosro Bakhtiar said the Punjab government released wheat in July, whereas Sindh start releasing wheat in October to flour mills. He said the Sindh government is releasing 6000 tonnes of wheat on daily basis. He said that Prime Minister Imran Khan has asked the Sindh government to enhance supply of wheat to reduce the prices of flour.
He said the PML (N) in its tenure did not increase the support price of wheat due to which farmers were opting for more profitable crops. He said because of population growth Pakistan on yearly basis needs an increase of 500,000 tonne additional wheat to meet its need. He said to meet the shortage of wheat government is importing 2.2 million tonne of wheat.
