Millers protest wheat movement, say Thar does not produce wheat

MITHI:The flour millers from various areas of Tharparkar district on Thursday, after closing down their mills, gathered in Mithi, Islamkot, Diplo, Chelhar, Kaloi, Chhacchhro, and other towns to register their protest against the unavailability of wheat grains.

The protesting millers talking to the local journalists deplored that concerned government functionaries were not providing them the required quantity of the grain mainly due to the ban on the inter-district movement of wheat by Sindh government.

They termed the ban a cruel joke with Tharis. They said: “Tharparkar is the only district which is dependent on flour and rice from other neighboring districts like Mirpurkhas, Badin, Umerkot and others but the ban on the purchase and supply of the same had created the worst food crisis in the vulnerable district, which was already facing the food insecurity due to incurring droughts in the rain-dependent arid zone of the country.

“We have been forced to come on the roads to register the protest after failing to convince the concerned functionaries to allow us to purchase the grains from other districts to cater to the needs of people of the desert region in the wake of the fatal COVID-19 threat,” they added and warned that there would be serious food crisis in the district if they were not provided with the grains within next few days since they had already run short of the stocks.

“The arid zone like Tharparkar should be exempted from such bans on the movement of the food grains since the desert does not produce such essential foods,” they said and demanded the high-ups of Sindh government to take strong notice of the alarming situations and provide them with the required quantity of the wheat before the situations took the ugly turn. Despite repeated attempts, no concerned official could be contacted for the official version on the flour crisis and the subsequent protest of the millers across the district has emerged.