03 January 2004	Saturday	10 Ziqa'ad 1424

KARACHI, Jan 2: Sindh Food and Agriculture Minister, Arif Mustafa Jatoi has declared that there is no wheat shortage in the province.

He said this while presiding over a meeting, in his office, to review the availability and supply position of wheat and atta in the province, an official statement on Friday said.

Secretary and director Food attended the meeting along with all regional heads of the department. The minister, after reviewing reports of wheat supply for December, 2003, observed that like in October and November, the quota allocated for the month was also under-utilized.

He said that false impression was being propagated by vested interests regarding the shortage. Mr Jatoi observed that for the months of December, from the allocated quota of 165,000 tons of wheat, the flour mills had taken only 133,881 tons.

Referring to some print media reports regarding shortage and black marketing of wheat in Khairpur district, he said that after careful scrutiny of the reports it was revealed that this situation had been caused due to hoarding of Atta at the wholesale and retail level.

Mr Jatoi said that chakki and flour mill owners were being closely monitored and were asked to supply atta at the rates fixed by the government. The rates agreed by the Flour Mills' Association was Rs11 per kg, while the retailers had committed to sell atta at Rs11.50 per kg, he said, adding this was being monitored daily.

The minister said that arrangements had been made to maintain adequate stocks of wheat in government godowns, and 150,000 tons of wheat was already stored, while approximately 100,000 tons was expected to be provided by PASSCO.

Additionally, 300,000 tons of wheat had been allocated to Sindh from imports, and if needed, it might be brought from Punjab as well, to meet the requirement of the province. -APP