HYDERABAD: Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) has condemned Sindh government’s decision of imposing a ban on inter-district movement of wheat crop as ill-advised.

In a statement issued here on Monday, SCA senior vice president Nabi Bux Sathio said that the decision gave an impression that it was taken at the behest of corrupt food officials to compel growers to sell their produce to traders at a lower rate. He apprehended that the crop would then be procured from traders by food department.

He said that before imposition of the ban, wheat was selling in market at Rs1,550-Rs1,600 per 40kg and now the rate had dropped to Rs1,250-Rs1,300 per 40kg.

Mr Sathio said like in the past growers did not get gunny bags from food department during the procurement process which caused trouble to them. He said now an inadequate rate was being offered by traders to cause heavy loss to growers.

He recalled that whenever farmers demanded imposition of a ban under Section 144 of the CrPC on movement of sugar-cane crop from Punjab to Sindh during crushing season, the provincial government always opposed it by arguing that a ban could not be imposed on food supplies as it was considered rights violation.

The SCA leader asked that why the food supply was banned now in Sindh.

He said that the Sindh government was procuring a small quantum of the total wheat crop leaving the rest of it for sale in the open market which had resulted in the drastic fall of wheat price. He deplored that after purchasing the crop from growers, traders would sell it to food department at Rs1,700-Rs1,800 per 40kg in the open market later.

He urged Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah to order immediate lifting of the ban on wheat movement.

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2020