KARACHI: Sindh Chamber of Agriculture Larkana President Syed Sirajul Aulia Rashdi has said that the sowing of wheat crops had started in the country for which Pakistan needed 27 million tons of seed and feed.
This is the time for planning and sowing more wheat so that poverty-stricken people can be able to procure cheap flour, he said while talking to this scribe on Saturday. He said the government should stop importing substandard wheat from Russia, adding instead it should work for better yields and price should be fixed for 40 kg at Rs2,000 because Russain substandard wheat rates were currently Rs2530 per 40 kg and they were also paid in dollars.
He said next year’s procurement target should be fixed between 7.5 to 8 million tons. He said during the current year, tillers sold over five million tonnes wheat at the rate of Rs1,400 per 40 kg which came to Rs35 per kg and the poor growers and peasants suffered huge losses because of the government’s negligence.
He said: “If we add Rs3 for grinding per kg, then the wheat flour should be sold at Rs 38 per kg, but it is not even available at Rs70 per kg which proves the ill-planning and bad working of the mafia.” Rashdi said the worst affected were the poverty-stricken people who could not afford such a massive price hike out of which only profiteers and hoarders were benefitted. He wondered, “God knows who is minting money, middlemen or the millers, but it is certain that the government had been very badly defamed.