DADU, March 5: The growers of the district are not selling wheat to the food department as traders are offering them Rs1,050 to Rs1,100 for 100kg of wheat against official rate of Rs875.

The food officials of the district have been directed to procure wheat from March 1 but till now they have not purchased a single bag of wheat. Meanwhile, traders from Karachi, Lahore, Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas have established wheat procurement camps in Johi, Khairpur Nathan Shah and Dadu talukas where huge stocks of wheat are available..

On the other hand, godowns of the food department are lying empty and some 250 'chakkis' and flour mills have been closed in the seven talukas of the district as wheat quota has not been provided to them. As a result flour shortage has appeared in Dadu, Bhan Saeedabad, Sehwan, Bubak, Phulji, Johi, Sita Road, Radhan, Mehar and Khairpur Nathan Shah towns. The crisis has also led to an increase in flour price as traders are selling flour for Rs15 to Rs16 per kg.

The general secretary of Dadu Flour Mills Association, Sikandar Lakhair, told this correspondent that in the first week of February, 35 bags were provided to every flour mill and after that no wheat was supplied to them.

A grower, Syed Mithal Shah, said that the growers had spent huge amounts on fertilizer, pesticide and running tube-wells for cultivating wheat crop but the government was purchasing wheat at the rate of previous years.

He said that the government should fix a new rate for wheat procurement otherwise the growers would continue to sell wheat to private sector. When contacted, District Food Controller Ghulam Ali Mirza said that he had held a meeting with the farmers to discuss the issue of wheat procurement.

He said that 41 wheat procurement centres were set up in the district and movement of wheat from one district to other was banned. He claimed that 14,780 bags of wheat were provided to flour mills in February and more wheat would be provided to them during the current month.

TEACHERS SUSPENDED: Twenty absentee school teachers were suspended by education EDO Ghulam Mustafa Kalhoro in the district on Friday.

The EDO paid surprise visits to the primary schools of the villages of Illahi Bukhsh, Bukhshoo Chandio, Hamzo Rind, Yar Mohammad Kalhoro, Phakka and Khudabad and found the teachers absent from their duties. He suspended the absentee teachers and issued a show-cause notice to assistant district education officer Wahid Bukhsh Bughio.

DEMO: Muslim Students Federation activists held a demonstration here on Friday, demanding that the government should allow Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leaders, Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif, to return to the country.

They were led by MSF provincial chief Roshan Ali Baloch and PML-N district president Hamid Bhand. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Baloch said that they would continue their struggle till the return of the Sharif brothers.