KARACHI, Nov 28: Flour millers predict acute wheat shortages in Sindh by January next but Sindh’s Food and Agriculture Minister Arif Jatoi is confident of maintaining a steady wheat supply from government stocks till next harvesting in late March or early April.

“We have a stock of 285,000 tons wheat with us and hope to receive 30,000 tons more from PASSCO,” Arif Jatoi told Dawn by telephone on Tuesday morning. He was confident that there was sufficient wheat to pass through comfortably the three months period of pre-harvest.

The 285,000 tons of stock include 69,000 tons of 1999-00 crop that was auctioned off in first week of August to a bidder from Sindh Chief Minister’s home district at a virtually throw away price. “We are in process to begin the delivery of this stock after Eid,” the Sindh minister said.

Millers and well placed sources in Sindh government say that release from 69,000 wheat stock to the bidder has been stopped. “No orders have been issued but not a single grain of wheat is being released from this stock,” a well placed source in Sindh government said. The source said that a small part of this stock has been damaged because of rains and infestation but a sizeable chunk is still consumption worthy.

Millers say that the government does not have enough wheat stock and has, therefore, stopped the supply.

“Mills have not taken their full share of November,” the minister disclosed and indicated that a little over 100,000 tons wheat for a month was more than sufficient to meet the requirements of the mills.

Malik Naeem, a leader of the flour millers in Karachi, contests the minister’s assertion and pointed out that the government was meeting the requirements of flour mills. “We are being provided wheat from 01 and 02 crop,” he said and pointed out that millers were purchasing 03 crop wheat from open market at Rs1,100 per ton. “We are using a blend of 20 per cent from 01 crop, 20 per cent from 02 crop and 60 per cent from 03 crop that we purchase at inflated rate from the market,” he said.

He blamed the Sindh Food department for being generous in their wheat releases to millers located in the interior of province. “The wheat available in the market is being sold by mills in the interior and partly some little quantity comes from Punjab,” Malik Naeem said.

Millers in Karachi say that Sindh government is brazenly patronising the flour mills and traders in interior of the province who get wheat from government stocks at Rs827 to Rs830 100 kg and is being sold in Karachi at about Rs1,100 per bag giving them a profit of Rs270.

Malik Naeem also contested the minister’s claim of getting 30,000 tons from PASSCO. “It is more than ten days that we have been hearing the delivery of 30,000 tons from PASSCO,” he said and asserted that till today not a single grain has come to Sindh.

While the discussion on wheat availability in the current season goes on in Sindh, the federal government has convened a meeting of agricultural ministers of all the four provinces on December 8 at Islamabad to ascertain wheat sowing position in their respective areas.

The federal government has proposed a target of about 8.2 million hectares for wheat sowing in all the four provinces with an expectation of 20 million wheat harvest in spring of 2004. Wheat will be sown on more than 6.2 million hectare in Punjab with an indicated production of 16 million tons, 851 thousand hectares in Sindh with an indicated production of 2.3 million tons, 785 thousand hectares in NWFP to give a production of one million ton and 335 thousand tons in Balochistan with an expected harvest of 700 thousand tons.

The December 8 meeting will make a full dress review of the wheat sowing operations with specific reference to clearance of sugarcane from the fields.

“We have cleared 16 per cent of sugarcane fields by this time as against 14 per cent last year,” Arif Jatoi informed this correspondent by telephone on Tuesday. He recalled that sugar millers had started sugarcane crushing late December last year. This year the crushing has started earlier.

Market sources are confident that the announcement of support price at Rs350 for 40 kg of wheat will prove to be a big incentive for farmers and if they got good seeds, adequate fertilizer and sufficient water there is no reason why wheat output may not exceed 20 million tons next spring.