9,000 tons of wheat damaged

Govt has to focus on reviving economy of the province, says Sindh CM Qaim Ali Shah.

KARACHI: Along with the rehabilitation of flood survivors, the government has to focus on reviving the economy of the province, said the Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah on Wednesday.

The chief minister presided over a meeting held on Wednesday at CM House to discuss losses to wheat stock and possible relief packages.

The floods have devastated the economy of Sindh, said Shah, adding that thousands of acres of crops have been washed away and the market has been affected for many months to come. The government has to look after the flood survivors but it must not forget to focus on the agriculture sector as well and try to do as much damage control as possible. We must fix our priorities and for this, all departments of the government have to work in close coordination, said Shah.

He said that government must form a strategy by which they can ensure fair distribution of ration among flood survivors for at least another month.

Naveed Kamran Baloch gave a presentation on wheat issues in the province. He said that the Sindh food department has supplied 303,000 bags of flour for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in 10 of the worst affected districts in the province. Out of these, 283,050 bags were distributed while the rest are still lying in stock. Each bag weighs 10 kilogrammes.

The food secretary informed the meeting that around 3,000 tons of wheat stock was damaged by the floods and rains in just Jacobabad. Meanwhile, 4,000 tons were damaged in Dadu district and 2,000 bags in Jamshoro district.

Right now, the number of wheat stocks comes up to 193,134 tons for crop 2009 and 1,296,848 tons of wheat for crop 2010. The total wheat number of wheat stock in the province is 1,489,983, added Baloch.

During Ramazan, 22,082 tons of wheat were released under a special Ramazan package across Sindh with the help of a Rs2319.871 million subsidy.

The agriculture secretary, Akhter, said that the federal government plans to distribute free of charge seeds and fertiliser for 3.5 million acres throughout Pakistan. Moreover, they will launch an awareness drive in the province to educate farmers about the price of sunflower seeds. The government has decided to fix the rate at Rs6,100 per acre of sunflower seeds that are cultivated.

Zardari calls for
‘comprehensive plan’

The chief minister said that President Asif Ali Zardari has directed them to prepare a comprehensive rehabilitation plan. He has told the Sindh Chief Secretary to call a joint meeting of concerned departments and finalise the details of damages, losses in all sectors including agriculture, irrigation and infrastructure.

The president also directed that the chief secretary must collate all details of allocations and expenditure from all DCOs for auditing. He added that a comprehensive briefing will be held to discuss this soon.

The World Food Programme has approved food baskets for 300,000 families, which will be supplied to them for three months. More than 7.3 million people in the country have been affected by the floods. The food baskets programme is starting from Sindh.

The meeting was attended by Sindh Agriculture Minister Syed Ali Nawaz Shah, Sindh Food Minister Mir Nadir Ali Magsi, Sindh Chief Secretary Ghulam Ali Pasha, Finance Secretary Muhammad Siddique Memon, Secretary to CM Abdul Kabeer Kazi, Agriculture Secretary Agha Jan Akhtar, Food Secretary Naveed Kamran Baloch and others.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th, 2010.