The illegal trading surface during a meeting of mills owners held at Sindh Secretariat when millers alleged that the Food Department is issuing government imported subsidised wheat to non-functional mills which they are selling in open market through brokers and even the genuine millers are purchasing wheat to meet their demand. They said most of the wheat bedsides Karachi is arriving from interior of Sindh and Punjab.
Sources closed to millers and Food Department said 15 flour mills in Karachi alone are engaged in illegal trading of government.
The situation elsewhere in the province is not different to that of Karachi as most of the distribution and warehouses officials of the regional directorate were facing anti-corruption charges.
Meanwhile, the wheat growers rejected the Provincial Agriculture Department claim of harvesting a bumper crop in view of the delayed sowing despite two rains and cold wave during last month, which is favourable to wheat crop.
They said the agriculture department claim is based on assumptions as the department or the wheat research institutes have no center anywhere in the major wheat growing districts of province to compile update data on the situation of wheat crop.
They said due to water shortage and delayed harvesting of sugarcane crop the sowing target was not achieved and the prospects of wheat cultivation in non-perennial land remains dims which indicates shortfall in production is inevitable and the province might continue to haunt by wheat crises.