LAHORE: As rates of white sugar have soared up apparently because of smuggling of the sweetener with the advent of Ramazan, the Punjab government has decided to devise a mechanism with the help of other provinces and local sugar mills to check the menace.

Punjab Food Secretary and Cane Commissioner Muhammad Zaman Wattoo says for hauling of sugar from Punjab to other provinces a permit issued by the district administration concerned will be mandatory.

He says check-posts on borders with other provinces are being made effective.

A spokesperson for the Customs says that they have foiled bids to smuggle out of the country at least 848 tonnes of sugar during the last two weeks.

Mr Wattoo says a crackdown has been launched against hoarders in the province.

He claims that so far 46,000 bags of sweetener have been recovered from different hoarders in Punjab and raids are being conducted on many more storages on receiving secret information.

He says that cases are being registered against the accused under the Prevention of Speculation in Essential Commodities Act 2021.

Penalty under the law is a minimum of six months jail term and fine not less than Rs100,000.

The Economic Coordination Committee had on Jan 3 allowed the export of 250,000 million tonnes of sugar when the sweetener was available at an average of Rs93 per kg across the country.

But, sources say at least 0.4m tonnes of the commodity had so far been exported and thus its local rates shot up to Rs130 per kg and the sugar mills pocketed Rs115 billion extra in the process.

PFA: The Punjab Food Authority (PFA) is carrying out inspections of food points to prevent adulteration and the sale of substandard food, thus ensuring the provision of healthy and safe food to the people during Ramazan.

The food safety teams examined more than 100 food points, such as production units, hotels, dairy shops, restaurants, general stores, and others. As a result of the inspections, the PFA stopped the production of two food points, penalised 18 food business operators with hefty fines, and served warning notices to 82 eateries for improvement. In addition, 3,050 litres of substandard milk were discarded.

The PFA took action against those who did not take proper measures to control insects, used substandard ingredients in food, had poor hygiene conditions, and failed to present the necessary records to the raiding teams. Furthermore, the workers of the food points did not have medical certificates.

The PFA has urged the public to cooperate by reporting any counterfeit food items or practices to the authority. The public can call the 1223 helpline or post complaints on the PFA’s social media accounts.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2023