Sindh cabinet fixes 1.4 MMT wheat procurement target at Rs2000 per 40kg

KARACHI: The Sindh Cabinet Thursday, after thorough discussions and deliberations has decided to fix wheat procurement target for crop 2020-21 at 1.4 MMT at a rate of Rs 2000 per 40 kilograms.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah chaired the meeting of the provincial cabinet here at CM House which was attended by provincial ministers, advisors, chief secretary Mumtaz Shah and all the secretaries concerned, said a statement.

The Sindh Food department told the cabinet that currently 800,000 tons of wheat was available with the department. The department had procured 1.236 MMT from Crop 2019-20 and procured 117,000 tons of imported wheat from the federal government.

The department assured the cabinet that the wheat stock available with it was sufficient till the harvest of the new crop 2020-21, therefore they requested the cabinet to decide the procurement target.

The cabinet thoroughly discussed the matter and decided that the support price would be Rs 2000 as was decided earlier and 1.4 MMT wheat would be procured in the next procurement season starting from next month.

The cabinet also allowed the food department to purchase Bardana to the extent of the assigned target at the ratio of 80 percent PP bags and20 percent jute bags.

The cabinet, keeping in view the shortage of teaching staff, approved the proposal of recruitment of around 37000 teachers in next three years. A sub-committee has been constituted to review recruitment policy 2021 for teaching and non-teaching staff in the education department.

The committee submitted its recommendations suggested that the minimum prescribed qualification for PST shall be graduation in the second division.

The post of PST (BS-09) may be upgraded to BS-14 henceforth for initial recruitment in view of upgradation of qualification from intermediate to graduation.

The PST shall remain in primary schools throughout their service. Therefore, service structure may be created for career progression of PSTs instead of allowing them promotion to the post of JESTs/HSTs/SSTs.

For instance, the post of senior primary school teacher (BS-16) and post of Head/chief Primary School Teacher BS-17 can be created for promotion of PSTs.

Professional qualification shall be made mandatory for recruitment in next rounds.

The recruitment rules for other teaching cadres such as Music Teacher, SLT, Oriental Teacher etc may be revised keeping in view the availability of the specialized qualification holders in the market.’

The cabinet discussed the recommendations and approved it in principle with the direction to the education department to prepare a detailed presentation how the recommendation would be implemented and what would be its financial impact.

The cabinet was told that around 37,000 positions of teachers of different cadres were vacant in the school education department.

The cabinet allowed the education department to start recruitment [through IBA Sukkur] in three phases- during the next three years.

The Sindh cabinet, considering the request of Junaid Rehman Ansari undergoing life imprisonment at central jail Karachi, granted him remission.

The home department told the cabinet that Juanid Rehamn was going under life imprisonment which turned out to be 25 years and had served 16 years four months and 16 days sentence. He has also earned other remissions of five years, 11 months and 25 days. His unexpired portion of sentence comes to two years, seven-month and nine days. The educational remission has been worked out at two years, seven-month and nine days, if the cabinet approves.

The cabinet approved education remission and five-month and nine days sentence still remained to be served which the cabinet also approved as remission.

The cabinet directed the home department to work out the details of such other prisoners who could be given similar remission.

The cabinet also called the details of the prisoners who have completed their sentence but are still languishing their lives in jails because of non-payment of surety bond.

The chief minister directed the home department to submit these details in the next cabinet meeting.