MITHI, Feb 6: Area people have demanded that the government should sanction a special quota of 50,000 bags of wheat to overcome flour shortage in Tharparkar district.

They have also urged the Sindh governor and chief secretary to take notice of the persistent wheat shortage in the district.

Talking to this reporter here on Friday, members of district council - Abdul Latif, Dalpatrai, Mohanlal and Abdul Raheem Khoso - said the officials of the food department were supplying wheat to the 'chakkis' in the district in a very small quantity which could not meet the requirements of one and half million people.

They said that the officials have been time and again told that the land in the district was not fit for wheat crop and therefore the people totally depended on the supply from the food department.

They claimed that owing to the scarce supply of wheat many 'chakkis' have been rendered non-operational creating acute flour shortage in the district. They demanded that the government should sanction special quota of 50,000 bags of wheat for Thar.

MPAs Abdul Razzaq Rahimoon, Rajvir Singh and Poonjomal Bheel said though they had apprised the high-ups of the wheat crisis in the calamity hit area, the quarters concerned had not taken any step to resolve the problem.

People had complained that they were not getting the flour from most of the 'chakkis', however if there was any it was of extremely low quality. They alleged that some of the 'chakki' operators were mixing chaff, fuller's earth and rice dust with the wheat flour in the absence of an official check.