KARACHI, July 2: Flour mills in Karachi will suspend their operations from next Friday to protest against what the millers allege the government’s indifferent and callous response to their repeated appeals for improving wheat transportation from interior of the province by removing inter-district movement and withdrawing the condition of 600 bags of wheat quota for a mill a day in the city.

“The general body of the Karachi chapter of All Pakistan Flour Mills Association will hold a meeting on Saturday to decide on future course of action,” Iqbal Daud, the zonal chairman of the association declared at a press conference on Wednesday at the Karachi Press Club.

“It is easy to smuggle wheat from Pakistan to Afghanistan, Central Asia or India but impossible to transport it hassle free to Karachi, from the interior, he said while revealing that a consumer in Karachi is paying Rs10 more on one kilogram of wheat flour than consumers in other parts of the country.

The millers said that they were paying almost Rs1,000 on 40 kg of wheat instead of Rs625 fixed by the government and hence the reason why wheat flour is most expensive in Karachi.

“Wheat flour is being sold at about Rs30 a kg and if the same situation of inter-district restriction on wheat movement in the province persists for some more time then these prices will go up to Rs35-40 a kg,” Iqbal Daud warned. From Nawabshah to Karachi, there are more than a dozen check posts on a stretch of about 300 miles highway where private forces extort money from the trucks carrying wheat,’’ one of the leaders of the millers said at the press conference.

A rough calculation made on the data and facts given by the millers established that an average about Rs15 million is being extorted every day at these check posts on which private force has been deployed. “We must have paid about Rs600 to Rs700 million as extortion money in last two months for getting wheat from trucks,” another miller said, who estimates transportation of about 3,000 to 3,500 tons of wheat to Karachi every day.

“You can get a 100 kg wheat bag at Rs1,800 to Rs2,000 in Ghotki or Dadu,” the flour miller informed and added that in Karachi the same bag will cost anywhere from Rs2,400 to Rs2,450.

When harvesting began in late February and early March, the Sindh government put restriction on inter-district movement of wheat on the plea that it had to procure targeted 600,000 tons of wheat at the rate of Rs625 for 40 kg. Later, the government allowed Karachi mills to purchase wheat from Mirpurkhas and Hyderabad. After that the mills were allowed to purchase wheat from Nawabshah and Sanghar.

In the face of all these restrictions and hurdles put in the way of free movement of wheat, the Sindh government has failed to procure targeted quantity and the estimate is that hardly half a million tons have been purchased. “Ask the Sindh Food minister Mir Nadir Magsi and other ministers, who are big zamindars, how much wheat they have sold to the government during its procurement drive?” asked a miller.

There are more than half a dozen more wheat growing districts in Sindh from where the government is not allowing any movement. “Wheat is coming from all the districts of Sindh but after paying extortion money at the check posts,” the miller added.

The Pakistan Flour Mills Association, Sindh circle has demanded restriction free movement of wheat in all parts of the province and removal of what it calls “illegal check posts on the highway and also withdrawal of the so called force”.