Gunny bags only provided to select few

LARKANA: Officials of the Food Department have been accused of issuing gunny bags to selected farmers and also purchasing wheat from them. This was stated by the Larkana Chambers of Commerce and Industry President Masood Ahmed Shiakh through a press release.

It further stated that an LCCI delegation met the Agriculture Development Commissioner Qadir Bakhsh Baloch and told him that farmers and producers were being forced to dispose of wheat at Rs850 per 40kg against the government fixed rate of Rs950 due to the unavailability of required number of gunny bags.  The ban on inter-districts movement of wheat had further aggravated the situation as within one district it was next to impossible to raise procurement prices, they said.

Sindh produces 3.5 million tons of wheat annually, while its requirement was six million tons, and to bridge the gap, it purchases 2.5 million tons from Punjab, said the LCCI delegation.

Punjab’s annual wheat production was 18 million tons against the requirement of 11 million tons, they said. The team apprehended that growers would cultivate less wheat under present conditions. It also demanded a permanent Passco office in Larkana after Nawabshah and Khairpur and opposed establishing new sugar mills.

The delegation called for lifting the inter-district ban on wheat movement in Sindh and a uniform wheat procurement policy.

Traders predicted acute shortage of certified seed of paddy in the Kharif season and called for making effective and in time arrangements for the availability of seed.

Larkana produces 57,000 metric tons of guavas annually and around 40 per cent of the production is wasted because of the lack of fruit preserving industry in the district, they said. They urged for establishing the industry to help traders save production damages to guava.