HYDERABAD: The Additional Chief Secretary Food Sindh Naseer Jamali has informed that the government has launched a scheme of the restoration of wheat godowns of Food Department with an amount of Rs. 999 million and after completion of the scheme, the capacity of wheat storage will be enhanced.
At present, the wheat storage capacity of the godowns of Food Department is 0.65 million tons, he informed this while addressing a meeting of the officers of Sindh Food Department, representatives of Sindh Abadgar Board and Sindh Chamber of Agriculture at Ex-Nazim secretariat here on Monday evening.
The Additional Chief Secretary informed that Food Department will constitute district and taluka level committees under supervision of the Deputy Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners respectively in order to ensure transparency in distribution of gunny bags and wheat procurement during the current year.
The government would not provide any special quota and the wheat procurement will be started from March 15, he said. While responding the demand of the representatives of Sindh Abadgar Board to impose Section 144 Cr.P.C. during wheat procurement, the Additional Chief Secretary maintained that the decision will be made according to prevailing situation.
He informed that such meeting will also be convened in Larkana and Sukkur so that the joint strategy could be evolved for wheat procurement target.
The Commissioner Hyderabad Jamal Mustafa Syed who also attended the meeting requested the Additional chief Secretary to delegate the powers to Deputy Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners to initiate action against the officers including the District Food Controllers if they found negligence in their duties.
The representatives of Sindh Abadgar Board and Sindh Chamber of Agriculture demanded the enhancement of the wheat price, appointment of high powered officers at procurement centres and equal distribution of gunny bags to growers.
The Deputy director Food Saleemullah Siddiqui informed that the government has fixed the target of wheat procurement as 1.3 million metric tons in Sindh during the current year which included 0.390 million metric tons in Hyderabad division as compared to 0.410 million last year.
He informed that the department has established two wheat procurement centres in Hyderabad district, nine in Matiari district, five in Tando Allahyar district, four in Tando Muhammad Khan district, nine in Badin district, , 23 in Shaheed Benazirabad district, six in Thatta district, 10 in Jamshoro district and 18 in Dadu district.
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