KARACHI, April 15: Conflicting claims are being made about wheat production in Sindh this season.

The government claims that the target of 3.4 million tons would be achieved while growers fear that it would be 0.6 million tons less than the figure.

Talking to Dawn, provincial agriculture secretary Subhago Khan Jatoi acknowledged that there was water shortage and the wheat crop missed the supply before the final harvest stage. This resulted in reduction in size of the grain crop.

He, however, insisted that the last minute water shortage would not affect target as wheat was sown on 984,000 hectares as compared to 982,000 hectares last year.

To a query, he said on average 40 per cent harvesting of wheat had been done in the lower Sindh, while some areas, such as Umerkot, Mitthi, Badin, Thatta, have witnessed 90 per cent harvesting.

He further said that harvesting has already started in Larkana, Ghotki, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, in upper Sindh, and the province would exceed its wheat target by over one million tons.

Sindh Abadgar Board Information Secretary Syed Nadeem Shah told Dawn on telephone from Hyderabad that the province would have 0.6 million tons output less than its target. He maintained that the crop was not only affected by water shortage but also by rains and foggy weather in the upper Sindh.

He said that the crop in kaccha area, which stretches to 0.5 million acres is irrigated by floodwater overflowing the Indus banks in case of floods in the river was also damaged.

He said: “Wheat harvest in lower Sindh is almost complete but final figures are yet to come.”

The SAB official claimed that due to the shortage of water the per-care yield had dropped to 15-16 maund compared to 40-45 maund in times of sufficient availability of water.To a query, he said that the wheat procurement target of 0.7 to 0.8 million tons for the province would be hard to achieve as only 500 to 600 wheat bags had arrived by Saturday on two main procurement centres at Matiari and Tando Allahyar compared to 6,200 to 6,400 bags last season.

Mr. Shah said the food department procurement staff was facing shortage of wheat bags and is putting conditions for purchase of wheat from farmers at a rate far less than the market.

He claimed that there was Rs7,000 per truck difference in prices of the procured wheat at official rates and the market price.

He feared that in the present circumstances it was hard to achieve even 25pc of the procurement target of 0.7 million tons.