Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah said on Sunday that only 11 sugar mills had so far started sugarcane crushing out of 33 in Sindh.
He said this while talking to media after visiting Bhutto leaders’ mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Bux where he arrived to see the arrangements so far made in connection with the celebration of 7th death anniversary of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.
Shah said the owners of sugar mills located in lower Sindh had some issues for which he had asked the agriculture secretary to resolve them through talks and ensure that all mills start crushing sugarcane so that growers should not suffer.
He said it was for the first time that sugar prices fixation right had been given to the provinces, adding he was in touch with the chief ministers of KPK, Balochistan and Punjab so that uniform sugar rate could be fixed in the country.
Shah claimed that despite floods, rates of wheat, rice and sugarcane were fixed last year which greatly benefited the farmers. “Punjab is fixing the sugarcane rate first which is Rs 172 per 40 kg and then Sindh enhanced it with two rupees last but Sugar mill owners underwent huge losses.”
Shah said Benazir Bhutto’s death anniversary would be observed in traditional manner in which party workers and leaders from all over Pakistan would take part in a large number. Shah further said that central leadership of the PPP would address the public meeting on the occasion in Garhi Khuda Bux.
In reply to a question, he constituted two inquiry committees including one by chief minister’s inspection team against the news item that five newborns died due to non-availability of oxygen gas in Paeds Medicine Department of the ChandkaMedicalCollegeHospital, Larkana, and added that they would submit him report within four days and then the offenders would be punished.
The chief minister claimed that there was no shortage of drugs in the hospitals throughout Sindh as wrong things were being spread, adding the people crying for medicine shortage were involved in corruption in the past as there were reports of non-supply of medicines in the past to the poor patients.
Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani, other PPP leaders and activists, Commissioner Saeed Mangnejo and DIGP Saeen Rakhyo Mirani were also present on the occasion. Shah also chaired a meeting of mazar committee and directed all the officers to make efforts in provision of all necessities and facilities to the workers participating in Benazir’s death anniversary on December 27.
