KARACHI: Sindh Assembly Leader of Opposition Haleem Adil Sheikh in his statement on Wednesday has said that wheat prices in Sindh are the highest in the country.
Flour is being sold in Sindh at more than Rs 2,800 per maund, he said, adding that an artificial flour crisis is being created in the province.
The Sindh government should have released the government wheat immediately. The Sindh government had stopped the release of 1.2 million tonnes of wheat. Earlier, the Sindh government did not buy wheat.
Billions of wheat in Sindh are eaten by government rats. Instead of providing relief to the people, the Sindh government is pushing for inflation, Haleem Adil SHeikh said.
The opposition leader said, the Ministry of National Food Security and Research has written a letter to the Sindh government on the instructions of the Prime Minister.
In the letter, the Food Department had asked the Sindh government to formulate an immediate government wheat release policy. He said that due to delay in release from government wheat stock, flour prices in Sindh were higher than other provinces.
The federation has announced “Wheat Release Policy 2021 and immediately released the stock of wheat in the flour mills under its jurisdiction. In this context, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have announced their release policy.
Wheat release price has been fixed and flour mills have started issuing their stock. As a result, the prices of wheat and flour started falling in both the provinces.
In Sindh, the food department has a stock of 1.2 million tonnes of wheat. That is enough to meet the wheat needs of the entire province by March next year.
Haleem Adil Sheikh said that no release policy of wheat has been started by the Sindh government yet. As a result of delay in wheat release, PPP is raising prices and storage prices. Sindh Food Department is already indebted to 150 billion banks for wheat procurement.
