Islamabad, Feb 1 (IANS): The Pakistan government has declared a national emergency to eliminate the attacking swarms of desert locust which are destroying crops on a large scale in Punjab after wiping it out in Sindh, the media reported on Saturday.

The decision was taken at a meeting on Friday convened by Prime Minister Imran Khan, reports Dawn news.

The meeting attended by federal ministers and senior officials of the four provinces also approved a national action plan (NAP) that requires a sum of 7.3 billion Pakistani rupees to overcome the crisis.

Khan directed the authorities concerned to take all the necessary steps on emergency basis to contain the locust outbreak in the country and to prevent crop losses.

The locust attack was first spotted in the country in March 2019 and its swarms later spread over 900,000 hectares in Sindh, South Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, damaging standing crops and trees worth millions of rupees, reports The Express Tribune.