The Sindh Cabinet has set a support price for wheat at Rs. 4000 per 40 kg in an effort to motivate and help local farmers who have been impacted by flooding to grow more wheat and prevent a famine-like situation in the province.
At CM House, the meeting was presided over by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah. Provincial ministers, advisors, the chief secretary, and concerned secretaries were present at the meeting. Through a video link, a number of ministers, advisers, and special assistants joined the meeting from flood-affected areas. The decisions made in the cabinet meeting were communicated through press announcements by the minister of information.
"Now, we have to think about our grower who has to reclaim his land from the flood water, prepare it for sowing, and use costly inputs to grow the crop, so the benefit of the better price must be passed on to the local grower,” the chief minister said after stating that the provincial government had purchased imported wheat at a cost of Rs 9000 per 40 kg.
Manzoor Wassan, the CM’s advisor on agriculture, stated that because the agricultural grounds were so saturated, it will take a lot of work to dewater them and get them ready for the following harvest.
“If the wheat is not grown to a certain proportion, the province may face a famine-like situation,” he said and suggested offering a good price to the growers as an incentive.
The cabinet members after thorough discussion decided to offer Rs4000 per kg support price for the wheat crop 2022-23.
The meeting decided that the food department would begin releasing its wheat stocks on October 1, 2022, with the issue price being determined by a subcommittee made up of Advisor Agriculture Manzoor Wassan, Minister Food Mukesh Chawla, Minister U&B Ismail Rahu, Special Assistants Qasim Naveed and Haris Gazdar, and Chief Secretary Sohail Rajput. The subcommittee was instructed by the cabinet to provide its recommendations within a week.
Disaster-affected regions: On the advice of the Relief department, the cabinet approved post-facto the designation of 24 districts as disaster-affected areas, including two UCs in the Malir district of the Karachi division.
It should be mentioned that on August 21, 2022, 22 districts were declared calamity-hit areas, and on August 29, 2022, Tharparkar was declared as such.
