Policies, Reforms and Laws for Higher HSI 15.6 Food Security Food prices have escalated by 50% from March 2022 to March 2023. This reflects supply shortages due to the damage inflicted on standing crops and loss of livestock by the floods. Further, with a large depreciation of the rupee, the prices of basic imported food items have also gone up sharply. A critical problem that has emerged is the depletion of wheat stocks. According to the 2021-22 Pakistan Economic Survey, the wheat stocks were only 1.8 million tons as of the end of May 2022 as compared to over 8 million tons in June 2021. This ought to have led to a high level of imports during 2022-23. The actual quantity imported is 2.2 million tons from July 2022 to February 2023, as compared to over 3.3 million tons during the same period in 2020-21. The supply shortage and, consequently the escalation in the price of the staple food item, wheat flour, has led to a very big increase in its price of almost 70% from March 2022 to March 23. The government has offered a free wheat bag to BISP members during the month of Ramadan, but this has led to deaths due to trampling of the queues. This modality of distributing wheat needs to be abandoned. There is a need for a number of major steps to increase food security, as follows: i. As recommended above, following the implementation of a big increase in the size of the BISP, there should be an increase in the cash transfers to enable the purchase of wheat flour by poor households at higher prices. ii. Despite the foreign exchange shortage, top priority must be given to importing urgently at least another 3 million tons of wheat. 15.7 Energy Security Pakistan today faces the problem of very high energy prices. Recently, the tariffs for domestic, commercial and industrial consumers have been raised by 60% to 100% in the case of natural gas and by 40% to 60% in the case of electricity. The other growing problem is the increasing inability to import energy to the extent required due to the severe shortage of foreign exchange. Consequently, power load-shedding is likely to peak once again in the coming months while gas supplies remain restricted. The level of petroleum prices has gone up substantially during the last year due to the ongoing large rupee devaluation and the imposition of a large petroleum levy of Rs 50 per liter. As the international oil prices rise following the OPEC quotas, there will be a continuing increase in domestic POL prices. 125