SUKKUR, March 4: More than 50 flour mills of upper Sindh, including Sukkur, Khairpur, Naushahro Feroze, Nawabshah and Ghotki districts, will be closed on March 6.

This decision was taken at a meeting of the All Sindh Flour Mills Association here on Thursday. More than 100 flour mill representatives from all over Sindh attended the meeting.

On this occasion, the president of the association, Hyderabad, Dr Zulfiqar Yousfani, announced that flour mills of Hyderabad region would observe a strike on March 6 and 7 to express solidarity with Sukkur region mills.

Karachi region association president demanded that the Sindh government should provide wheat to flour mills of interior Sindh according to their quota. Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, All Sindh Flour Mills Association chairman Muneer Ahmad Memon and vice- chairman Aijaz Baloch said their struggle was to provide cheap flour to the people. Representatives of the association were present on the occasion.

Mr Memon and Mr Baloch said they extended full cooperation to the Sindh food department but it did not fulfil its promises. They said they had met Sindh Food Minister Arif Mustafa Jatoi and the food secretary on Feb 23 who had assured them that mills would be provided with their wheat quota.

They further said out of January quota of 10,000 bags, 3,800 bags were supplied to flour mills due to which mill owners were forced to buy wheat at higher rates from open market. This had led to a rise in the flour price and closure of 10 mills, they added.

The association leaders demanded that the Sindh government and the food department should provide wheat quota to flour mills. They warned that if according to the promise wheat was not supplied to flour mills, mills in Sukkur, Khairpur, Naushahro Feroze, Nawabshah, and Ghotki districts would be closed on Saturday. They held the government responsible for the crisis and consequent price hike.

The leaders said 30 to 35 wheat bags per day were being supplied to flour mills in Sindh while in Punjab, they claimed, 600 bags per day were being supplied to mills.

They said they would draw the attention of the federal government towards Sindh flour mills to take immediate action to save the industry from being destroyed and provide relief to the people.