Sindh to face worst kind of wheat crises

Sindh province might face worst kind of wheat crises following the fast depleting wheat stock in government grain warehouses.
The prices of wheat throughout the province have started showing upward trend and wheat quoted at Hyderabad open market is Rs 12.75 to Rs 13 per kg while 79 kg bag quoted at Rs 1020.
Elsewhere in the province the prices quoted are Rs 14 to 15 per Kg.
According to confirmed reports the wheat stock in lower Sindh including Hyderabad has been virtually exhausted.
In upper Sindh the wheat stock position could be judged by the fact that last month the wheat quota to flour mills have been reduced to 6500 bags against the quota of 20000 bags while during the outgoing month of December only 4500 bags have been supplied to flour mills that too from grain godowns of Khirpur, Naushero Feroze and Nawabshah.
The small grinding units both in upper and lower Sindh devoid of their quota of government wheat planning to launch a province vide protest campaign against the provincial food ministry and growing corruption of wheat distributing officers.
There are allegations that posting and transferred in food department on political considerations had further aggravated the situation as the newly posted officers are engaged in more profitable activities instead of serving the people.
There are apprehensions that the crises may passed to next year as the wheat cultivation in the province is moving at snail pace due to delay in harvesting of sugarcane crop as so far only 0.556 million hectare have been brought under wheat cultivation showing as shortfall of 11 percent compared to last year, when the wheat production recorded a shortfall of 17 percent as compare to target.
According to agriculture experts to achieve the current year wheat target of 2.3 million metric tones fixed by the Federal Agriculture Committee is difficult to achieve and the province might face a production shortfall of 10 to 15 percent for various factors including poor availability DAP, and Nitro-Phosphate, delay in harvesting sugarcane.
Referring to government incentive in minimum wheat price, they are of the opinion that the incentive could help enlarge the target area of the wheat cultivation and not the yield per hectare.
They also referred to Sindh Agriculture extension failure to bridge the gap between the potential yield and the present yield by providing technical know-how to growers on modern methods of cultivation and farm management.
According to reports Punjab has refused to provide 0.3 million tones of wheat on differed payment to Sindh, which might further aggravate the situation and the price, might surge to all time record high within next few days.