KARACHI: The flour millers over the past weeks have been raising the price of the commodity on the pretext of limited stocks before the Russian wheat lands in the country by the end of this month.

The millers at the start of Ramazan gave a shock to consumers by raising the price of flour no.2.5 to Rs41 per kg from Rs38.50 per kg. This was followed by an increase in price of fine and super fine flour to Rs42 from Rs41, linking the price surge to rising wheat price in open market.

According to retailers, they are still charging Rs42 per kg for flour no.2.5 and Rs44-46 per kg each for fine and chakki flour respectively as they did not pass on the impact to their customers.

Surprisingly the price list issued by Commissioner Karachi for July 16 till Eidul Fitr states the retail rate of fine flour at Rs38 followed by Rs41 per kg for chakki flour and Rs34.50 per kg of flour of mills.

A comparison between prices clearly shows that the retailers are over charging and not following the official price of flour fixed by the government.

Chairman, Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA), Sindh Zone, Ansar Jawed, said that the millers raised the price six days back owing to rising price trend in wheat.

He said the Association members had kept the rate steady till the wheat rate was hovering at Rs3,300 per 100 kg bag but could not hold the price as wheat rate in open market swelled to Rs3,500 per 100 kg bag recently.

Earlier in June, the 100kg wheat bag was available at Rs3,180. Flour millers had been pushing up the rates for the last one month attributing hike to persistent jump in wheat prices.

When asked why the consumers were not benefiting from the good wheat crop, he said: “There is no truth in news of bumper crop as wheat production fell by three per cent against the estimated crop size.” He added that L/Cs had already been opened for import of 250,000 tonnes of wheat out of which the first shipment of 25,000 tonnes Russian wheat would arrive by end of this month.