BAHAWALNAGAR: Scores of people held a protest rally against the administration and staged a sit-in at Allah-o-Akbar Chowk in Minchinabad against the shortage of free flour bags, unfair distribution and poor security arrangements at free flour distribution centres.

Meanwhile, eyebrows have been raised at the administration’s strange step of the gradual decrease in the number of flour distribution points from 19 on the first of Ramazan to just three now.

The protestors raised slogans against the local administration, alleging that the officials posted at the flour distribution centre at the Aini Marriage Hall had collected their CNICs on the first of Ramazan for distribution of flour. However, despite making them stand in queues from morning till evening for several days, the official neither gave them flour bags nor returned their CNICs. They said that after waiting for nine consecutive days, now the administration told them that their CNICs had been lost.

The protesters marched on the city roads and held a demonstration outside the Minchinabad AC office.

Minchinabad SHO Pervez Akhtar assured them of provision of free flour on merit and against collected CNICs of several protestors. Later, when the protestors ended their sit-in, the SHO asked them to visit the centre on Saturday (today), some angry protestors told Dawn.

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Several free flour seekers told the media that the flour bags were being distributed only to politically-backed people or those who had bribed the officials’ agents.

A senior revenue official, requesting anonymity, told Dawn a scam of hundreds of millions of rupees was being done in the guise of the free flour scheme in connivance with the revenue and food officials and mill owners. He said the number of distribution points was reduced to create the checks and balances problems due to the rush at the points whose number had been reduced.

Giving an example, he said that in Minchinabad, a tehsil with a population of more than 0.5m, 19 points were established in five areas, including Minchinabad city, McLeod Ganj, Mandi Sadiq Ganj and Adda Feeder for the supply of the subsidised flour. However, since the beginning of the free flour scheme, instead of raising the number of points, the administration first reduced them to six and then to just three in the entire tehsil. The same tactics was repeated across the district, he added.

Another method of embezzlement in the free flour scheme pointed out by the official was issuance of hundreds of bags at a time to a person (agent) to later sell the flour to hotel owners or shopkeepers. Corruption of hundreds of thousands of rupees was done daily with the disappearance of the flour bags, the official alleged.

Several protestors at Allah-o-Akbar Chowk confirmed that only a few dozen people, who queued up all day at the centre, had got flour while in the evening the administration claimed that thousands of bags of flour had been distributed.

Talking to Dawn, Muhammad Shareef Kharal of Kaloki Jhaal, Muhammad Ishaq, Younas, Bilqees, Bushra Bibi and others confirmed that after getting one free bag from the distribution points at the marriage hall and Loharka centre, when they visited these centres again, they were told by the administration that they had received all three bags.

The protestors, in their video statements, told the media that the Minchinabad AC and one of his subordinates, an official who had faced jail term on corruption charges, had threatened them of lodging cases against them if they protested.

They also alleged that despite the large-scale deployment of policemen at flour distribution centres, the local police seemed disinterested in controlling the crowd. Instead, they remained busy giving flour bags to their favourites or relatives.

The people demanded an increase in the number of free flour centres in every tehsil on the population basis and launch of a departmental inquiry against the officials involved in the corruption.

When contacted, Minchinabad Assistant Commissioner Ahmad Javed Cheema agreed that more flour centres were needed to give relief to people but that instructions to reduce the flour distribution points were received from the higher authorities, which he followed. He said some people’s CNICs were lost at the flour distribution centre established at the old Nadra office during the initial days of the scheme, due to which flour could not be provided to them. But now the administration was working for solution to compensate these people, he added.

Our Vehari Correspondent adds: Dur Muhammad (72), a resident of Karampur Town, had died of a heart attack outside the flour distribution centre at the Vehari Stadium after getting a flour bag, says a press release issued by Vehari DC’s office.

The press release made it clear that the old man had not died while standing in a queue at the centre as was reported in the media.

According to a report published on Friday, Dur Muhammad had come to the Vehari Stadium to get free flour. He was standing in the long queue when he suddenly collapsed and fainted due to the long wait.

The report had said that the old man had died without getting first aid.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2023