KARACHI, Jan 13: Personnel of Pakistan Rangers, Sindh, have been deployed at all the flour mills across the province to monitor the flow of wheat supply, on the intervention of President Musharraf to resolve the flour crisis in the country.

Four to five personnel were deployed at each mill on Sunday to monitor the wheat flow from government godowns to mills and the flour produce from the mills as well as its ex-mill price daily.

The shortage had caused a raise in mill flour price from Rs16 to Rs26 a kilo and chakki flour rates from Rs24 to Rs30 per kilogram. In most cases small chakkis, located in residential areas, have exhausted their wheat stock and become non-operational since the supply was suspended.

However, the situation is likely to improve following the deployment of Rangers at the 71 mills in Sindh who will monitor the wheat and flour inventory, cutting the chances of hoarding.

Talking to Dawn on Sunday, Pakistan Flour Mills Association’s Sindh chapter chairman Iqbal Dawood assured that their association would fully cooperate with the authorities to improve the situation.

Under an agreement reached between the government and the association, he said all the flour mills in Sindh would start flour supply at the ex-mills rate from Monday.

He said that flour would be supplied at Rs17 a kilo and as such its 10kg bag would be available at Rs170.

However, he said that the city government was the competent authority to fix the retail price, which he hoped would not exceed Rs18 a kilo. In fact a city government representative had informed the secretary food department during a meeting that the retail price of flour would be within Rs18 per kg, he recalled.

Mr Dawood said that the price of an 80-kg flour bag would come down from Rs1,900 to Rs1,350 following the steps taken by the government. He said that the government had increased wheat quota from 3,150 bags per week to 3,450 bags a week and hailed the government decision to increase the wheat quota further from the next week.

He was optimistic that the increase in supply of wheat quota to the mills and its monitoring would help normalise the situation within the next few days.

According to the figures released by the government after the president’s intervention, the country has 1,803,246 tonnes of reserved wheat stock at present. In Sindh, the wheat stock of 228,096 tonnes is enough for 43 days. Punjab has 1,416,692 tonnes of wheat reserves which suffice its need for 68 days. In the frontier province, the stock reserves are 149,880 tonnes enough for 34 days and an equal stock in Balochistan which was sufficient to meet its requirement for 42 days.

Meanwhile, it has been decided that Rangers in league with the food department officials would carry out inspection of flour available in the market to prevent the supply of substandard quality to consumers, adds APP.

The decision was made at a meeting, chaired by Rangers DG Major-General Liaquat Ali, held at Rangers Headquarters on Sunday. Among others, the provincial food secretary was also present at the meeting.

To prevent the smuggling of flour to Afghanistan and Iran via the Balochistan routes, three check-posts would be established at Hub, Jhampir and Kashmore. The check-posts would be manned jointly by the officials of food department and Rangers.