CM asks officials to fix wheat procurement target

RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has asked the officials of Food Department to fix 1.3 million metric tonnes target for the procurement of wheat in this year (2012), Business Recorder learnt on Saturday.

Reliable sources inside the Food Department told that Chief Minister has asked the officials of department that the target would be the same to procurement of wheat which was fixed last year.

He has asked this while chairing a meeting a few days back at Chief Minister House. The meeting was called to review the wheat production in province and to fix its procurement target, sources said.

Sources informed that food department would setup of about 400 wheat procurement centres to purchase expected target of 1.3 million MTs of wheat.

About 60,000 MTs for Hyderabad district, about 185,000 MTs for Dadu, about 15,000 MTs for Badin, about 5,000 MTs for Thatta, about 100,000 MTs for Mirpurkhas, about 190,000 MTs for Sanghar, about 65,000 MTs for Sukkur, about 150,000 MTs for Ghotki, about 150,000 MTs for Khairpur Mir’s, about 130,000 MTs for Naushehro Feroz, about 140,000 MTs for Shaheed Benazirabad, about 60,000 MTs for Larkana, about 10,000 MTs for Shikarpur, while about 40,000 MTs wheat procurement targets would be fixed for Jacobabad, they informed.

In this connection, Director Food, Talib Hussein Magsi told that though Chief Minister has asked us to fix target as per last year’s target but it could not say that chief minister’s direction would be followed in this regard.

He said that food department has written a letter to the concerned officials of agriculture department to know about the exact figure of wheat cultivation in province this year. After the report, the food department will decide the actual target of wheat of this year, he added.

In this regard, sources said that wheat cultivation has been reduced in many districts due to rain’s water standing in the fields.

They said that Irrigation Department became failed to drain-out standing water in rain-affected districts despite passage of more than five months, resulting growers could not cultivate wheat and other crops.

It may be noted that last year’s heavy rains had badly affected about 20 districts of Sindh including Badin, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Dadu, Larkana, Tharparkar, Matiari, Tando Mohammad Khan, Jamshoro, Hyderabad and Tandoallahyar.

The rain-affected growers could not sow the wheat and other seasonal crops in the fields, resulting thousands of growers are facing financial troubles again and Sindh government would face troubles in wheat procurement, sources concluded.

It may be noted here that the wheat production in the province last year was 3.700 million metric tonnes while around 38 million population of the province had need about 4.399 million metric tonnes of wheat.