April 24, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 17, 1429

HYDERABAD, April 23: The Sindh Abadgar Board has criticized the provincial government for imposing ban on inter-district movement of wheat and said that the decision is unwise and unjustified.

In a statement issued here on Tuesday, the president of the chamber, Abdul Majeed Nizamani, said that the present government was the strongest coalition in the history of the country and the people expected from this government to bring an end to price hike, flour, water and power crisis, unemployment and poor and law and order. However, he added, the people were becoming disappointed with the performance of the government.

He said that the growers were forced to sell wheat crop at the rate of Rs625 per 40kg but the consumers were paying Rs28 for one kg of wheat flour. What would be the fate of the poor consumes in July when the entire wheat crop would have been purchased by traders, Mr Nizamani asked.

He said that the Sindh Abadgar Board had told the prime minister in writing that if wheat price was not fixed in a judicious manner, the people would have to purchase wheat flour at the rate of Rs40 per kg in July.

He appealed to the Sindh government and chief minister to approach the federal government to fix wheat support price at the rates prevailing in the international market. Mr Nizamani pointed out that nowhere in the entire world including India, the official price of wheat had been fixed at less than Rs1,150 per 40kg.

What was the logic behind fixing the official price of wheat at 50 per cent less than the international price in Pakistan, he asked. The only beneficiaries, he said, would be commission agents, corrupt government functionaries, black marketers, hoarders and smugglers.