HYDERABAD, April 18: The Atta Chakki Owners Social Welfare Association has threatened to observe strike if the food department does not give up the practice of confiscating wheat they purchase from growers.

Talking to this correspondent here on Saturday, the association president, Haji Nawab Ali, said that the food department had adopted a novel method of meeting its wheat procurement target by confiscating wheat of the Chakki owners instead of purchasing the same from growers.

He said that the deputy director, food department, and district controller had enforced law of jungle in Hyderabad district as they were filling the government godowns with wheat purchased by the Chakki owners.

Mr Ali alleged that so far the Hyderabad food department had confiscated 60 trucks of wheat of the Chakki owners. He added that the department had established checkposts around Hyderabad to stop wheat from entering the city. If the practice was not discontinued, Mr Ali warned, the Chakki owners would be forced to declare a lockout in their mills or resort to strike.

He feared that if the food department failed to procure wheat directly from the growers, it would not be able to meet its procurement target which would create an acute shortage of wheat flour in the city.

He advised the Sindh food secretary to concentrate on the wheat procurement centres and direct the officials of his department to go to the interior of Sindh to procure the grain. He said that it appeared as if the government wanted wheat to be imported as it was paying no attention to meet its procurement target.

ELECTRIFICATION: People's Party Parliamentarians MNA Abdul Ghani Talpur has said that 15 villages of Kotri, Kohistan and Sehwan will be electrified under the Tameer-i-Pakistan Programme at a cost of Rs10 million.

In a statement faxed to Dawn on Saturday, he said that several villages had been electrified under the same programme during the fiscal year 2002-03 at a cost of over Rs3.5 million.

The MNA complained that the opposition leaders were ignored by the government in respect of development funds. He demanded that the government should announce a special development package for the neglected areas of Dadu district.