HYDERABAD: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture has demanded that corrupt food officers who are not issuing gunny bags to growers should be removed.

An SCA meeting held here on Sunday also demanded of the government to ensure establishment of wheat procurement centres forthwith. Chamber president Dr Syed Nadeem Qamar presided over the meeting.

It also expressed concern over reduction in procurement target to 0.9 million tons from 1.3 million tons in this wheat season. Since the government has not established procurement centres, traders are purchasing wheat crop for Rs1,050 per 40kg. It said growers did not get officially notified sugar cane price, which caused billions of rupees loss to them and now they were not getting support price of wheat crop. It said new wheat crop in Mirpurkhas district was being harvested and harvesting in lower and upper Sindh would begin in the third week of the current month or first week of March.

The meeting did not rule out corruption in issuance of gunny bags to growers as according to it, food officers committed irregularities in bags’ issuance to earn money through corruption.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2015

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