Too little space, too little control when it comes to food

The food department does not have any laboratory for testing food quality in the province, said the Sindh food minister.

The food department does not have any laboratory for testing food quality in the province, Nadir Ali Magsi, the Sindh food minister, told the Sindh Assembly on Wednesday. However, he added, the department has almost completed the construction of a wheat quality testing laboratory in Landhi. It will be ready by June this year, said Magsi.

The Wednesday session opened with a question and answer session, with MPA Arif Mustafa Jatoi inquiring about the amount spent on wheat silos that were to be built near the Northern Bypass. Two hundred million rupees have been earmarked for the project that will set up and restore wheat storage houses across the province. However, the project has not been approved yet.

Wheat is being oversold at very high rates in shops in Dadu district, pointed out another member, Kulsoom Chandio. She asked if the shopkeepers were being fined for this act. The food minister said that so far, the magistrate and the revenue officials have issued four challans against some of the people involved.

There are 15 godowns in district Ghotki, said Magsi, adding that they were definitely not enough to store the harvested wheat. He assured the members of the assembly that more storage houses will be set up in Ghotki’s town Ubuaro very soon.

The federal government has told the Sindh food department to set a target of Rs1.5 million metric tons of wheat. The department has been given a district wise breakup for the production of the crop during Rabi 2009-2010. Hyderabad’s target is 160,000 metric tons, while 61,000 MT is Dadu’s target, 249,000 MT for Badin. Thatta has been told to produce 6,000 MT while the target for Mirpurkhas is 99,000 MT, Sanghar is to produce 190,000 MT, Sukkur to aim for 75,000 MT of wheat.

Meanwhile, the support price was fixed by the federal government at Rs950 per 40 kilogrammes.

A vigilance committee had been formed for the wheat procurement campaign 2008 in an attempt to curb illegal transportation of wheat by road. However, the committee was abolished in May 2009 because there were no reported cases of wheat smuggling that year. So there is no need for the committee, concluded Magsi. He added that the province produced more wheat than it needed and according to the standing committee’s recommendations, there are no restrictions on inter-provincial movement of wheat.

Resolution against Kala Bagh Dam

The assembly passed a unanimous resolution against the Kalabagh Dam and members condemned the remarks made by Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz’s (PML-N) MNA Abid Sher Ali.

The resolution was passed by Minister for Culture Sassui Palejo who requested the speaker to include it in the proceedings for the day.

In a rare move, Speaker Sindh Assembly Nisar Ahmad Khuhro rose from his seat and read aloud the resolution while members from both treasury benches and the opposition repeated after him. This was the first time that the speaker became involved in moving a resolution.

The resolution came after remarks made by PML-N’s MNA during his speech in the National assembly on Tuesday when he said that those provinces opposing the establishment of Kalabagh Dam should stand dissolved as they are ‘Indian agents’.

Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa had already rejected the controversial dam project by moving resolutions against its construction in their respective assemblies.

Pakistan People’s Party’s MPA Sharjeel Inam Memon said, “Those carrying the agenda of establishing the Kalabagh Dam lived in a fool’s paradise and they should think before they speak.” He insisted that the project will not be executed even if he dies in the process.

“While Sher Ali made these remarks in the assembly the rulers remained silent,” said Pakistan Muslim League - Quaid’s Nuzhar Pathan, “He should have been strangled and kicked out of the parliament by the ruling party but it did not happen.”

Meanwhile, Sardar Ahmad, Humera Alwani, Askari Taqvi, Tauqeer Fatima Bhutto, Dr Sikander Mandhro, Shamim Ara Panhwar, Dr Nasrullah Baloch, Jam Mehtab Daher, Munawar Ali Abbasi, Saleem Khursheed Khokhar and Rukhsana Shah also participated in the debate opposing the dam.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 17^th, 2010.