16 February 2004	Monday	24 Zilhaj 1424

KARACHI, Feb 15: The Sindh government has ordered an inquiry into the wheat shortages in the province, including the ongoing one, following the reports of alleged irregularities in the Sindh Food department.

Sindh Chief Secretary Dr Mutawakkil Kazi has constituted three committees, one each for the regions of Karachi, Sukkur-Larkana, and Hyderaabad-Mirpurkhas, which will go through the records of past four years and submit their report within a month.

The recent wheat crisis, which, besides causing increase in atta prices, had brought a bad name for the government, was due to rampant corruption and in-efficiency of the department officials, says an internal report.

The lack of accountability had resulted in the wastage of huge government spending on subsidy, every year, to maintain and stabilize the flour prices. However, the department, in spite of the provincial government support, had failed to attain the set targets, the report added.

The committees will check wheat stocks' position in government godowns, besides determining magnitude of the misappropriation and quality of wheat, and will point out the officials responsible for the crises.

The committees will also find out that, during the last four years, which flour mills and Chakkis were issued wheat quotas beyond the allocations. The Karachi region committee comprises Syed Sohail Ahmad Shah and assist director, Food, Fida Hussain Shaikh, while Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas region committee comprises Tanveer Ahmad Qureshi and Ramesh Kumar and that of Sukkur-Larkana region consists of Mushtaq Ahmad Lashari and Tariq Ahmad Memon.

After every three years, the province had been experiencing wheat crisis, which went unnoticed, informed sources pointed out and said that without an effective action against the officials concerned, the situation could not improve.