The Sindh Cabinet has fixed the support price for a 40 kg bag of wheat at 2000 rs in order to avoid spending foreign exchange on purchase of costly imported wheat.
This decision is taken to encourage the local producers to produce more wheat.
The cabinet also approved sugar cane support price at Rs202 per 40kg and the crushing season would start from November.
The cabinet meeting was held under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah here at CM House.
The meeting was attended by all provincial ministers, advisors, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah, provincial secretaries and other officers.
The first item on the agenda was fixation of the support price of wheat and sugar cane.
The cabinet members said that it was high time to fix support price of wheat to encourage the growers for cultivating the key grain in great quantity. They said that wheat had recently been imported from Ukraine which finally landed in the province at the rate of around Rs5,000 per 40kg though it was not of such a good quality as was being grown here.
It was pointed out that the country was spending foreign exchange on import of wheat but we were not ready to incentivize our growers so that they grow more wheat for local consumption and export.
The agriculture department told the cabinet that Punjab and Balochistan had proposed to fix maximum wheat procurement support price at Rs1,700 per 40kg while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa proposed Rs1,880 per 40kg.
The cabinet members unanimously decided to fix wheat procurement minimum support price at Rs2,000 per 40kg. “This decision at this time when wheat plantation season, from November 21 to December 15, is approaching … the growers would prefer to grow more wheat because of its good price,” the chief minister said, added that “being agricultural country we should formulate such policies under which we not only ensure our food security but export grain to earn foreign exchange”.
