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Huge quantity of wheat
destroyed owing to poor safety measures
 KARACHI-Poor safety arrangements at government godowns
destroyed wheat worth millions of rupees and the authorities
feared that more wheat would be destroyed if proper
arrangements were not taken.
Disclosing this to The News, sources said that 5,500 bags of
wheat were destroyed in Landhi godowns, resulting in financial
lose to the province. Officials claimed that the wheat dumped
in the godowns was damaged due to weevil and held the
concerned authorities responsible for the loss.
Sources said the position of wheat dumped in the SGG-II, SGG-III
and Pipri godowns would also be the same due to poor safety
arrangements. They expressed the fear that the loss might
amount to billions of rupees and pointed out that local
traders and mill owners refused to purchase the wheat due to
high rate being charged by the government while wheat was
available in open market at lesser price.
Officials pointed out that the government fixed Rs 800 per bag
without bag while it was available in open market at Rs 700
per bag with bag. The government would suffer huge lose if the
policy was not changed.
They held the department responsible for damage to the stock
of wheat and added that the concerned officials neither got
the godowns cleaned before storing wheat nor properly
fumigated the stocks.
Sources said the present wheat policy also created problems
for growers, as the government was the major buyer and there
were no others buyers for their produce. Sindh produced
2.5-million tons of wheat this year and the government failed
to arrange gowdons for the storage of the crop.
Official sources mentioned that the country produced a record
20 million tons of wheat in the present season while five
million tons were already in the stocks. The government had
sealed the borders with Afghanistan and took action against
the smuggling of wheat and Afghanistan purchased it from Iran.
This situation also aggravated the situation.
Sources also pointed out that there was possibility that huge
stock of wheat would be destroyed if drastic and revolutionary
steps were not taken for disposal of the old stock on
emergency basis. Sources said the government has asked
exporters to find market for disposal of the stock but the
exporters refused to do so unless proper rebates were allowed.
courtesy Daily The News, 5
April, 2002
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Pakissan.com;
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