KARACHl: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has directed the food department to evolve a strategy to ensure that benefits of Rs3 billion subsidy on wheat are passed on to the grass-roots level by providing wheat / flour at affordable rates to the poor segments of society.

The chief minister said this while presiding over a meeting held to ensure availability of subsidised wheat / flour to the poorest of the poor at Chief Minister House on Friday.

The participants in the meeting were informed that there was no shortage of wheat, and the food department had the storage of 858,000 tonnes of wheat at present.

The government had spent Rs3 billion on wheat subsidy to maintain stability in prices of flour at reasonable rate within the reach of the common people in the province, the chief minister said.

It was because of a mechanism evolved by the Sindh government, prices of wheat flour were much lower than the prices in Punjab, the chief minister said and added that the selection of targeted poor people must be transparent and acceptable to every individual and organisation.

Sindh Food Minister Jam Mehtab Dahar, Adviser to the Chief Minister on Finance Syed Murad Ali Shah and other officers concerned attended the meeting.