Sindh cabinet fixes wheat support price at Rs4,000 per 40kg to help growers

In order to encourage flood-affected local growers to grow more wheat to prevent a famine-like situation in the province, the Sindh government has fixed a support price of wheat at Rs4,000 per 40 kg.

The cabinet meeting was held with Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah in chair at the CM House on Sunday. The CM said that the provincial government had purchased imported wheat at a cost of Rs9,000 per 40kg which meant that the growers from other countries had benefitted.

“Now, we have to think about our growers who have to reclaim their land from the floodwater, prepare it for sowing and use costly inputs to grow the crop, therefore the benefit of the better price must be passed on to the local farmers,” he added.

The CM’s adviser on agriculture, Manzoor Hussain Wassan, said that the agricultural lands were submerged by floodwaters, and a lot of efforts were required for emergency drainage and preparation of the affected farmlands for the next crop.

“If wheat is not grown to a certain proportion, the province may face a famine-like situation,” he said and suggested that a good price be offered to the growers as an incentive. The cabinet members after thorough discussion decided to offer Rs4,000 per 40 kg support price for the wheat crop season 2022-23.

The cabinet decided that the food department would start releasing its wheat stocks on October 1 while the issue price in this regard would be suggested by a sub-committee comprising Wassan, Food Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla, Environment Minister Ismail Rahoo, Special Assistant to the CM Qasim Naveed, Haris Gazdar and Chief Secretary Sohail Rajput. The cabinet directed the sub-committee to file its recommendations within a week.

Calamity-hit areas

On the recommendation of the relief department, the cabinet accorded post-facto approval of declaring 24 districts as calamity-hit areas, including two UCs of District Malir in Karachi. It may be noted that the government had already notified 22 districts as calamity-hit areas on August 21, 2022, and Tharparkar on August 29, 2022.

Recruitment

The cabinet also approved the appointment of Imran Samad as the CEO/President of the Sindh Bank, Salahuddin as the managing director of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB), and Asadullah Khan as the chief operating officer of the KWSB.

Flood relief

Later, the CM presided over a meeting to establish a coordination mechanism for the floods and decided to speed up relief efforts by providing ration bags, tents and mosquito nets to the displaced communities.

Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho told the meeting that over 600,000 displaced people were living in the camps, of whom 1363,312 patients with different complications had been treated.

She added that out of total patients, 28 per cent had gastrointestinal issues, 27 per cent had skin diseases, seven per cent had dengue and malaria, and 38 per cent people had other health issues.

Dr Azra disclosed that some 5,636 pregnant women had been given shelter at the relief camps, of whom 439 were about to give births. To this, the CM directed the health department to register all the pregnant women and assign doctors to visit them regularly. "These women and children must be given special nutritional supplements,” he said.

Shah also directed the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) to ensure proper distribution of mosquito nets to control malaria and dengue in the relief camps.

The PDMA officials told the meeting that till September 10, 183,424 tents had been distributed and 9,945 were in the pipeline. The district administrations had been provided with 145,090 tarpaulin sheets and 60,000 more sheets were expected to be received within the next few days.

The CM was told that 1,385,105 mosquito nets had been distributed among the displaced people and 174,600 were in the pipeline. The district administration had been given 301,060 ration bags for the flood-hit people while 21,640 were in the pipeline.