HYDERABAD: Sindh Food Secretary Naseer Jamali has said that storage capacity of wheat silos of the food department is being increased at a cost of Rs999 million.

Presiding over a meeting of the representatives of growers and officials of the food department held in the former district nazim secretariat on Monday, he said committees would be formed at the taluka and district levels to ensure transparency in distribution of gunny bags and meet the target of wheat procurement.

Food department officials and growers representatives would be the members of these committees led by assistant commissioners and deputy commissioners, he added.

He said details of the distribution of gunny bagsin the past two years were being collected to ensure transparency in the distribution process. He made it clear that no special quota would be given to anyone this year and procurement of wheat would start by March 15.

He expressed the hope that with the cooperation of revenue officials and growers` representatives, procurement target would be met and transparency would be ensured.

He said the decision to ban movement of wheat by imposing Section 144 as per demand of growers would be taken after analysing the situation. He said 100 kg bag of wheat would be purchased at Rs3,000 and efforts would be made to ensure stability in prices of wheat in the open market and at the government end.

The commissioner of Hyderabad said that if deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners were entrusted the responsibility for distribution ofgunny bags and wheat procurement, they should be authorised to take action against delinquent officials, otherwise it would be difficult to meet procurement target and keep distribution process transparent.

The growers` representatives demanded that wheat support price should be increased and a responsible official should be posted at every wheat procurement centre.

Deputy Director Food Saleemullah Siddiqui said 1.3 million tonnes of wheat was to be procured in Sindh. He said 410,000 tonnes of wheat would be procured in Hyderabad division alone against last years` target of 390,000 tonnes for which 86 procurement centres had been established. He said five centres would be established in Tando Allahyar, four in Tando Mohammad Khan, nine in Badin, nine in Matiari, 23 in Shaheed Benazirabad, 10 in Jamshoro district, six in Thatta and 18 in Dadu district.