Afghanistan is facing huge food crises related, and now India has decided to send 50,000 tons of wheat as humanitarian help to Afghanistan, which will begim from February 22, 2022.

The wheat consignments from Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns will transfer the wheat to Afghanistan using the Pakistan region via the Attari-Wagah border of Punjab.

The wheat stocks have been obtained during the 2020-21 rabi marketing session.

For the first time, foodgrains are going to be transported as a help, and they are transported through the Attari-Wagah border; however, last time, such consignments were sent via the Kandla port. The World Food Programme will be going to coordinate with the division of wheat in Afghanistan.

According to the sources, the transportation of the entire 50,000 tonnes of wheat is estimated to be transported within four weeks. Pakistan has already given the importance of clearance for the trucks from Afghanistan to use its border for taking back India’s foodgrain help.

India will facilitate with foodgrains like rice and wheat as a humanitarian help to the various countries in which Afghanistan is also one of them, and the rest of the countries are DPR Korea, Madagascar, Mozambique Namibia and Zimbabwe, since the start of 2010-11.

In 2020-21, India sent 74,830 tons of wheat to Afghanistan as help and 1.1 lakh tons in 2017-18.

To provide food security in the South Asian province, India, through FCI, held a stock of 3.06 lakh tons of foodgrains out of the total 4.86 lakh tons SAARC food bank.

The FCI tied up with the state agencies procuring paddy and wheat from farmers. Through MSP operations, most of the grain came from the Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Odisha, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh.

The highly-subsidised food grains coming from farmers are supplied under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) to more than 80 crore heirs and kept as buffer stocks for dealing with difficulties.