Wheat crisis on the cards in Sindh

The mismanagement and alleged corruption in the Sindh Food Department have pushed the province at the verge of severe wheat crisis.

The Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah while taking notice of the shortage of wheat in the province has directed the concerned authorities to launch an operation against the hoarders of the commodity.

Shah has taken notice of the shortage in May while the wheat procurement began in the month of April. The province of Punjab has already met its procurement target in just four weeks’ time while the PASSCO (Pakistan Agriculture Storage & Services Corporation Limited) has also met the target of procurement. However, the Sindh Food Department has so far procured half of its target of 1.4 million metric tonnes.

The total production of wheat in Sindh stood at 3.9 million metric tonnes while the province needed some 4.7 million metric tonnes wheat a year.

According to an estimate, the Sindh province had to face 0.9 million metric tonnes wheat shortage which could be purchased from PASSCO or from the surplus wheat of Punjab, the sources said and added that the was an ideal one on papers while the ground reality was opposite to the estimate due to the mismanagement and alleged corruption in the provincial Food Department.

The Food Director Sindh Imdad Muhammad Shah said, “14 lakh metric tonnes of wheat is needed in the province for the current season and the government had procured so far 9.5 lakh metric tonnes of wheat while 4.5 million metric tonnes of wheat is required to cater to the needs of the people in the province”.

The sources in the Food Department disputed the claim of the Food Director saying that the government had procured only 7.65 lakh metric tonnes of wheat while they had recovered 1.4 lakh metric tonnes of wheat during an operation against hoarders and the total wheat stored in the Food Department became 9 lakh metric tonnes. The Sindh government was still facing a shortage of 5 lakh metric tonnes in the procurement wheat target, they added.

The target should have been completed in the early months of the wheat buying as the government had suspended the licenses of private sector buyers of the commodity.

The Director Food Department Imdad Muhammad Shah has confirmed that the licenses to purchase wheat remained suspended by the Sindh Food Department during the months from April to June so that the government could procure wheat for the entire season. Despite the suspension of their licenses, the ‘beoparis’ (middlemen) purchased wheat and stored for a certain period or sold that wheat to hoarders, he added.

The Secretary Food Raja Khurram said that the provincial government was planning to purchase 250,000 million tonnes from PASSCO and may also purchase wheat from Punjab. Imdad Shah said this year, the government’s wheat support price was 5,500 rupees per 100 kg while the wheat is being sold at 6,600 rupees per 100 kg in the open market. He said that growers were not responsible for selling their crop to the open market. These were the middlemen, he added.

Raja Khurram said that the standard formula is 125 kilogram of wheat per person per year. Therefore, if a hoarder deposits excess wheat than required for himself or his family, the government can seize it.

He also said that due to the Russia-Ukraine war, apprehensions gripped the market and hoarders made investment in purchasing wheat so that they could sell it at a high. He said the government has played the role of a ‘market stabiliser’. When the shortage of wheat was created, the hoarders raised the prices and at this point the government released the commodity from its stock to stabilise the market.

The sources have apprised said that the government’s role began in the months of August or September as in the beginning, the wheat to the mills was supplied by private sector. As and when the private sector ran out of stock, the government jumped into the market and released wheat to stabilize the prices in the open market. However, this year, the government had to jump in the beginning.

The government did not carry out much procurement, therefore, the wheat crisis might arise in the month of August or September when the government would run out of its stock. The hoarders might take advantage of the situation and the price would shoot up in the later months of the year which might be beyond control of the government, the informed sources have claimed.

Wheat Recovery Drive

The Sindh Food Department, on the directive of CM has launched operation against the wheat hoarders and so far, it has recovered 14 lakh wheat bags of 100 kg each in a bid to avert wheat shortage in the province.

In a statement issued by the CM House Spokesman, the chief minister has constituted a committee under the Secretary Food Raja Khurram and has authorized it to conduct raids at the warehouses where grain has been hoarded.

The provincial Food Department has raided a number of warehouses in the 22 districts of six divisions and has recovered hundreds and thousands of wheat bags from Khairpur, Ghotki, Sukkur, Naushehro Feroze, Shaheed Benazirabad, Larkana, Jacobabad, Kashmore, Shikarpur, Qambar-Shahdadkot, Hyderabad, Dadu, Jamshoro, Matiari, Tando Allahyar and Mirpurkhas.

The Sindh Food Minister Mukesh Chawla has said the drive against the hoarders would continue to avert the artificial shortage of wheat in the province. He added that the official rate of wheat was Rs 5,500 per 100 kg but the hoarders were trying to increase its price through hoarding. “They plan to release the grain in the market when its prices go up so that they can mint money, but the authorities thwarted their plan”, he apprised.

However, the sources said that 4 lakh wheat bags were illegally stored in a warehouse in Johi – a taluka in Dadu district. When the Food Department raided the place to confiscate the wheat from the hoarder, some influential figures intervened in the matter and after negotiations with the hoarders, some 2 lakh wheat bags were handed over to the department, the sources also said.

Similarly, the sources have apprised thousands of wheat bags were stored in the premises of rice mills in areas of Sualehpat, Pindrani and Ghotki in interior Sindh. Why the rice mills stored wheat, is a question that still awaits answer. However, the food department was helpless in confiscating wheat in many areas including Kashmore, which is the constituency of the Food Minister Mukesh Chawla, the sources added.

However, the wheat mills in Karachi were put under strict observation so that they could not buy wheat from the hoarders. The Food Secretary Sindh, Raja Khurram has said that Karachi was the biggest buyer of wheat where the government has put a strict check on wheat mill owners. The stock at mills was being shared on a daily basis to create hurdles for the hoarders to sell their wheat directly to the mill owners. This step of the government had perturbed the hoarders and stabilised the market as the wheat prices came down from Rs 7,500 rupees to Rs 6,600 since the action was initiated. He hoped that the prices would go down further.

On the other hand, the sources have said that fear has gripped the flour mills owners, and some of them have even stopped working as they could not purchase wheat from the open market. This step could further aggravate the situation and might create wheat flour crisis in the metropolis, the sources also said.