April 29, 2007	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 11, 1428

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MUZAFFARGARH, April 28: Food Department officials have said wheat merchants from Sindh and Balochistan are buying wheat from farmers in Muzaffargarh and this can fail the department from achieving the procurement target of 118,000 tons this year.

Syed Athar Abbas Gilani, an official of the Food Department, said unlike previous years, the response of farmers this year had not been satisfactory.

“We have received reports that merchants from Sindh and Balochistan are buying wheat from farmers at cheap rates and smuggling it their provinces.”

He said the district government should ban transportation of wheat out of the district and Revenue Department should go from farmer to farmer to pursue them to sell their yield to the Food Department.

The Food Department started wheat procurement in the district from May 26, three days behind the official schedule.

Deputy Food Controller (DFC) Malik Ameer Ali Monga cited transfers of officials for a delay in the launch of the procurement drive. He said he had found 8,000 to 10,000 bags full of wheat missing from the Food Department stores. He said he had joined the Muzaffargarh office just a week ago, and his predecessors were responsible for the loss of bags. He said he would send the case to the Anti-Corruption Establishment. He said he was committed to ensuring a transparent system of wheat procurement in the district.

PLIGHT OF FARMERS: A long queue of tractor trolleys and trucks can be seen outside Food Department stores waiting for their turn to unload the yield.

As there is no shed, drivers and farmers usually sit under a roadside tree.

“Supplying wheat to the Food Department is really a pain,” says Ghulam Abbas Qasai, a farmer.

“This year, thanks God, I had a bumper yield due to late January rains. After going through Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi’s statements that honest officials will be appointed at wheat procurement centres, I decided to sell my yield to the Food Department facility.”

He said he applied for gunny bags on May 20 but got them on May 26 and the same day, he loaded 100 wheat sacks on a tractor trolley and reached Food Department stores at 10am. Already about two dozens tractor trolleys and trucks were in queue waiting their turn to unload sacks. He said he also joined the queue. After a while, a man came to him and asked him to pay Rs10 as entrance fee.

Mr Qasai said he had not been given any receipt for the entrance fee. After four hours, his turn came to unload the yield and labourers charged him Rs5 per bag for unloading.

When the sacks were unloaded, a man got on the trolley and started mopping it voluntarily. After finishing the job, the volunteer asked him to pay Rs50 as cleanliness charges. He said when he refused to pay the money, a Food Department official “ordered” him to pay the money or take his bags to home.

At this, he said, he had no choice but to pay Rs50 as cleanliness fee to the volunteer. But this was not the end. A supervisor of the Food Department came with a big needle in his hand and stuck it in three of his bags, took out a few grains and tasted them. The supervisor asked labourers to weigh each bags on a scale one by one. When the process ended, a head-labourer came and demanded Rs100 as tip for completing the job. Mr Qasai said that he paid him the tip but this was not also the end.

After weighing his yield, when he got the receipt for his wheat bags, the supervisor had shown 98 bags instead of 100 bags in the slip. Two bags full of wheat went to the supervisor as tip, said Mr Qasai. “I could not ask the official why he had robbed me of two sacks, means a loss of Rs2124. My protest over detection of two sacks could put me in trouble. The official has full authority to cancel the deal,” he said.

When his ordeal was brought into the notice DFC Mr Monga, he said it was responsibility of the department to arrange unloading bags from vehicles. He said he would launch an inquiry against the contractor for fleecing money from the farmers. He said farmers should consult him if any official did not mention their full numbers of bags in the receipt.