PESHAWAR, Dec 19: The NWFP government has increased the daily wheat quota of local flour mills to bring down the price of the commodity in local market, where it has been on the rise for the past couple of months.

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of high-ups of the Food Department with office-bearers of the All-Pakistan Flour Mills Association, which was held here.

One of the participants of the meeting told Dawn that the Food Department had agreed to increase the daily quota of wheat from 1500 tonnes to 2800 tonnes. The flour millers had demanded the quota to be increased to more than 5000 tonnes a day.

He said the province had around 100 flour mills in operational condition, which would be released 140 bags of wheat daily from the government godowns instead of 68 bags which used to be released previously.

The NWFP government usually procures 250,000 tonnes of wheat annually from the federal government to meet the local demand.

However, due to sudden and galloping rise of the price of the commodity in the open market, it has immediately procured 200,000 tonnes of wheat from the open market to stop the price spiral of flour in the open market and to enable the authorities concerned to increase the daily wheat quota of the flour mills of the province.

Flour mills of the province had been earlier directed to sell flour made of the official wheat quota at designated fair price shops at Rs320 per 20 kilogrammes. However, with the increase of their daily quota, the flour mill owners have been directed to sell the same quantity now at Rs310 instead of Rs320.

In Peshawar, around 30 flour mills are in operation and have opened fair price shops in different parts of the city.

But consumers and flour dealers complain that each of these shops, which are supposed to distribute 300 bags of 20 kilogrammes a day, do not have the required quantity of flour.

Haji Rambeel Khan, the President of the NWFP Food Grain Dealers’ Association, alleged that the flour mill owners had deputed their own workers on these so-called shops, where hardly 100 bags were sold instead of the stipulated 300 bags. He said the distribution of the subsidised flour could only make a difference when it was distributed among consumers at specified points by dealers.

Despite tall claims of government authorities of controlling the flour spiral, the price of the commodity is still on the higher side.

On Tuesday, a 20-kilogramme inferior quality flour bag was available at Rs390 in the wholesale market and at Rs425 to Rs430 in the retail market. Before Ramzaan, a 20-killogramme bag of the commodity used to be sold at Rs270 in the open market.

Dealers attribute the increase in the price of flour to surge in prices of wheat in Punjab from where they bring the commodity for local markets.