HYDERABAD, Nov 16: The Atta Chakki Owners Association has accused the food officials of corrupt practices and warned that wheat shortage may occur in Hyderabad district in December.

Speaking at a press conference at the local press club on Sunday, the office bearers of the association said that ever since they had exposed the corrupt practices of the food department officials, they were being issued threats.

They, however, pledged to continue to expose the malpractice of the officials who, according to them, were formulating anti-people policies with a view to filling their coffers.

They said that the policy of distribution of wheat announced by food department officials for the month of November had totally failed. They said that the officials had assumed that they had a stock of 40 per cent old wheat and 60 per cent wheat of current season and issued directives about the distribution of wheat on this false assumption.

They said that this assumption has been exposed in two weeks as not a single bag of old wheat was now available in the stock.

They said that after paying for wheat, they were running from pillar to post but were not getting any wheat.

They feared that they could not be able to get more than 60 per cent of their quota of fresh wheat in November and no wheat would be available in Hyderabad area in December.

They said that the reason was that senior officials of the food department had ordered the transportation of 300,000 wheat bags out of a total of 600,000 from Bulhari godowns to Karachi whereas the wheat godowns of Hyderabad were lying empty.

They said that the remaining 300,000 bags were hardly enough to meet the monthly requirement of defunct Hyderabad division for November.

They pointed out that the wheat lying in the Bulhari godowns was brought from Sukkur and huge funds were spent on its transportation. They added another huge amount was being spent on the transportation of wheat from Bulhari to Karachi.