Staff Reporter
Karachi
Sindh Minister for Information, Archives and Labor Saeed Ghani has said that Sindh cabinet has decided to impose penalties on the flour mills’ owners who take quota from Sindh government but do not run their mills.
The provincial minister told that the cabinet decided that not only the strict action would be taken against all such mill owners but also the subsidy given to them would be withdrawn. According to the minister the provincial cabinet was told that the price of a weed bag in the market was Rs 5,000, while the Sindh government was giving it at Rs 3,000 after subsidy.
He said that according to the cabinet’s decision, the mill owners would now have to prove by showing their electricity bills that they had run their mills. He said this while briefing the journalists after the meeting of Sindh Cabinet on Thursday. The meeting was chaired by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, while all the cabinet ministers and administrative secretaries including the concerned officers attended the meeting. Saeed Ghani said that the cabinet was informed that there were 64 flour mills in Ghotki, Sukkur and Khairpur out of which 21 had chosen the option of plea bargain.
The Provincial Minister for Information said that these flour mills had returned two billion rupees after plea bargain, out of which the Sindh government had received only 200 million rupees so far. Saeed Ghani said that the Chief Minister Sindh directed that the National Accountability Bureau be contacted to take back two billion rupees it received by the plea bargain.
The cabinet also decided that no quota would be given to the flour mills who had either plea bargained or were defaulters or non-functional, the minister added.
According to the provincial minister information, however, the cabinet decided that all those flour mills that had defaulted would be considered for giving quota only if they return their default within15 days. Sindh Information Minister Saeed Ghani said that Sindh Cabinet also approved Sindh Hindu Marriage Rules 2019 after discussions. Under these rules, all these cases would now be heard in the Family Courts, the Minister said.
