SCA unhappy with delay in opening procurement centres

They claim that Sindh's wheat farmers are suffering financial loss due to this

HYDERABAD: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) has raised hue and cry over the Sindh government's delay in opening up the wheat procurement centres, claiming that the wheat farmers have begun to suffer financial loss due to this lack of action.

A meeting of the SCA in Hyderabad on Sunday, attended by farmers' representatives from Karachi, Sukkur, Sanghar and Ghotki via video link, also decried the alleged exploitation by private wheat buyers.

According to the SCA, the open market is paying only Rs1,100 per maund of wheat, against the government's offered price of Rs1,300. The harvest season has started in districts of Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas divisions.

The chamber also complained that the government is not also supplying gunnysacks in which the farmers sell their produce at the official procurement centres. The Sindh food department has set a 1.1 million ton target for wheat purchase from the farmers in the province.

The crop is sown on around 1.15 million hectares of land in Sindh.