PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Saturday said it was in contact with the federal government for wheat import to address flour shortages in the province.

It revealed that the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) had also been approached to purchase wheat.

The residents told Dawn that a bag of 20 kilogrammes fine flour was being sold at Rs1300 in Peshawar city’s grain market, Rampura Bazaar.

In a statement, spokesman for the provincial government Kamran Khan Bangash said in light of the rising flour prices, the province was in talks with the centre for wheat import, while Passco had been contacted for wheat supply.

He said the provincial government had decided to release wheat to millers at subsidised rate from July 1.

Govt says Passco also approached for wheat supply

Meanwhile, the provincial director (food) wrote to the district food officers and rationing controllers that the competent authority had decided to release wheat from the government’s godowns in the province on a daily basis with an immediate effect.

The letter dated on July 25 directed officials to release the daily authorised wheat quota accordingly and distribute proportionally among functional flour mills in their jurisdiction and share the statements showing daily wheat authorisation with the department.

On Tuesday, the provincial cabinet in its meeting had approved the release of subsidised wheat to flour mills to ensure the availability of 20kg flour bag at Rs860 on the market.

The move was meant to prevent flour shortages and price hike.

In the meeting, Chief Minister Mahmood Khan had expressed dissatisfaction with the food department over failure to achieve wheat procurement targets and directed it to produce a detailed report for not meeting targets in the next cabinet meeting.

Though the subsidised flour was sold in some shops of Rampura grain market, traders said fewer people were buying it due to low standard.

A trader told Dawn that flour prices were likely to go up further during Eid days.

He said retailers in other part of the city would defiantly sell a bag of flour at the price more than Rs1,300 being charged in the wholesale market.

On Friday, the KP Flour Mills Association had asked Prime Minister Imran Khan to step in and get provincial food minister Qalandar Khan Lodhi and other officials of the food department sacked over the rising flour prices.

In a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club, the millers claimed that stocks of wheat in government warehouses had come down to 150,000 tons, which wouldn’t last more than two weeks.

They said the province’s annual wheat requirements was around 4.6 million tons.

Mohammad Naeem Butt of the association said despite repeated warnings by millers, the government had failed to find a solution to the problem.

He warned that a serious flour crisis could emerge soon if the government did not take steps to address shortages at the earliest.

Mr Butt said hundreds of workers employed by flour mills in the province had lost jobs, while the prices of flour were increasing due to negligence of the food minister and his team.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2020