PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday sought detailed report from provincial food secretary about wheat flour crisis in the province and steps taken for controlling prices of the commodity in the open market.

A bench consisting of Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan and Justice Ijaz Anwar was informed by the food secretary, fixed Jan 19 for next hearing of a petition filed by a citizen, Haseebullah, seeking directives for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary to control prices of wheat and flour in the province and also stop supply of substandard flour to the local market.

The bench observed that it would issue a detailed order related to the flour issue and would direct the chief secretary to communicate the same to all the deputy commissioners in the province so as to effectively address the crisis.

The bench directed the officials concerned to take strict action against those involved in hoarding and arbitrarily increasing prices of the commodity as they did not deserve any leniency.

Orders action against hoarders, profiteers

Apart from petitioner’s counsel Danial Khan Chamkani, additional attorney general Aamir Javed and additional advocate general Syed Sikander Shah, several officers appeared on court orders including the provincial food secretary, Mushtaq Hussain, director food Yasir Hussain, additional deputy commissioner Peshawar Sania Safi and officials of National Food Security department.

The bench wondered if any food department existed in this province and how the price of flour had recorded drastic increase in last couple of days.

The bench observed that just to get a sack of flour people including women had been suffering on roads, whereas the authorities remained unmoved.

The secretary informed the bench that while their annual wheat requirement in the province for flour production was 5.1 million metric tons, the wheat production in the province was 1.2 million metric tons, due to which the province had to procure it from outside through Passco (Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation Ltd).

He stated that the province was mostly dependent on Punjab for provision of flour to open market and the increase in prices in Punjab had also resulted in its increase here.

He said the increase in price of bread (roti) was due to the fact that the bakers (nanbais) had mostly been using fine flour transported from Punjab. He added that they had asked the bakers to use the government provided flour but they were reluctant to use the same.

The AAG Aamir Javed stated that the federal government had recently provided 600,000 metric tons of wheat to the province and provision of more wheat was also in the pipeline. He added that there was no ban on part of the federal government for provision of wheat to the province.

The secretary food stated that strict action had been taken against those involved in hoarding and misusing the government provided wheat and in this connection wheat quota of three of the flour mills were cancelled and they were also fined Rs one million.

He added that they had also increased the provision of government wheat to flour mills by 1,500 metric tons daily so that there should not be scarcity of the commodity.

He claimed that due to steps taken by them the prices of flour in the open market had reduced by Rs700 to 800 per 20kg bag.

The bench then asked a senior lawyer, Ali Gohar Durrani, to visit the market for verifying the secretary’s claim.

Mr Durrani later informed the bench that a 20kg flour bag of different qualities was available at rate from Rs2,500 to 2,700, showing a decrease in the prices as compared to past few days. He claimed that the situation would further improve soon.

He said most of the dealers had complained that a sort of international border was set up between Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where an unannounced ban was imposed on transportation of flour to this province.

He added that the dealers claimed that the Punjab food officials and police had only been permitting transportation of flour to this province after receiving a hefty amount as bribe, which resulted in increase in prices of the commodity here.

Additional deputy commissioner, Sania Safi, informed the bench that during the last couple of days the administration in Peshawar had registered 62 FIRs against nanbais involved in overcharging and recovered fines to the tune of Rs700,000 from them.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2023