Pakistan: Sindh sets up 1,100 makeshift sales points to provide wheat flour at discounted rate

Karachi: The Sindh government has set up 1,100 makeshift sales points all over the province for selling wheat flour at a discounted rate of Rs65 per kilo.

The retail price of wheat flour in the market has gone up to Rs 150 per kg or even more causing serious hardships to consumers who have lately seen a phenomenal rise in the prices of the other essential products also.

Speaking at a press briefing, Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon said that 460 trucks had been deployed in Karachi alone as mobile units for selling the flour at the discounted rate.

He said that a total of 600,000 bags of wheat, each weighing 10kg, were being distributed by the provincial government at the discounted rate.

He said the provincial authorities were going to increase the quota of wheat to the flour mills in the province to bring down the retail price of flour to Rs95 per kg in the coming days.

Memon told media persons that the provincial government had set Rs4,000 per 40kg as the increased procurement price of wheat for the upcoming cultivation season in order to encourage the flood-hit growers in the province to raise the essential crop to avoid food shortages in the country.

He said that other provinces had also appreciated the decision of Sindh to phenomenally increase the wheat procurement price this year to benefit the growers.

Also, briefing media persons, Sindh Food Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla said the province had sufficient stocks of wheat, and there was no ban on inter-provincial transportation of the essential commodity.

He said that earlier the increase in wheat quota to flour mills had worked in the case of Punjab province where the retail price of the essential product had phenomenally come down.

Chawla announced Rs1 million compensation on behalf of the Sindh government for the family of a person who recently died in a stampede in Mirpurkhas city while attempting to get wheat flour at the discounted rate.