KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah chaired a meeting that reviewed wheat procurement and directed concerned authorities to speed up the process to achieve set targets within time.
Food Minister Makhdoom Mehboob uz Zaman in briefing to the chief minister informed that only 8,958 tons of wheat had so far been procured across Sindh. Murad Ali Shah expressed concern over the pace of procurement and instructed the food department to accelerate operations.
The provincial cabinet has fixed a wheat procurement target of one million tons and set the support price at Rs3,500 per 40kg.
Minister said that fixing five bags per acre for small farmers, has been the major cause of the slow procurement.
Chief Minister ordered to remove the restriction to achieve the set target of wheat procurement.
The minister informed the meeting that there are over 3,32,000 wheat farmers, which cultivated on 1.940 million acres of land.
Chief Minister said that the small farmers could sell wheat to the government without any restriction on the quantity.
The session was also informed that the payments to farmers have also been speeded up and the amounts are being paid to farmers within single day via the Sindh Bank.
“So far 198.3 million rupees have been distributed among the farmers,” the chief minister was informed, who expressed satisfaction over the improvement in the payment system.
Sindh CM also advised farmers to sell their wheat yield to the government’s procurement centres. “The farmers who will sell their wheat to the government will be eligible for the future’s subsidy”.
