LAHORE, Sept 2: Flour supply crisis worsened in the city on Tuesday with the government directing millers not to supply flour straight to dealers and retailers for the fear of hoarding but failed in establishing a parallel distribution mechanism.

Talking to Dawn, the millers conceded that flour ground with official wheat was lying on their mills’ premises for the absence of distribution mechanism. The district government was not lifting flour because it did not have sufficient supply network.

The food department, after un-ceremonious sacking of its secretary, is too scared of taking any decision on the distribution or monitoring flour reaching markets. Thus, ground flour was piling up at the mills rather than reaching the consumers.

Since price in other provinces was much higher, the food department officials were not even ready to allow flour out of mills for the fear of smuggling. “In NWFP, a 20kg bag sells at Rs440 and at Rs450 in Balochistan,” said a local miller who started grinding only on Tuesday.

The entire distribution mechanism was in a limbo as the millers could not use their own distribution mechanism and no government agency came forward to lift the stockpiles of flour. Thus, the crisis was likely to persist for next few days till the government came up with a final decision about the flour marketing, he said.

The district government was insisting that its own trucks would distribute flour at different points in the city. The millers knew that this mechanism would not work, but they were staying mum for the fear of getting any blame for the failure. Hopefully, with the new food secretary settling in next few days, the situation would improve as far as the distribution of flour was concerned.

Meanwhile, the chartered accountancy firm appointed by the government to finalise new grinding charges with millers has convened a meeting of the eight-member committee at the Civil Secretariat at 9am on Wednesday (today). The committee, consisting of four members each from government and millers, would thrash out the grinding charges for millers, scraping the earlier ones finalised by the outgoing secretary.

The committee consists of additional chief secretary, services secretary, food secretary (subject to availability) and food director from the government side and Bilal Sufi, Liaquat Ali, Mujahid Khan and Asim Raza from the millers’.

It may be mentioned here that the committee had to finalise grinding charges within three days and present its report to the chief minister. But, with central character of the dialogue (food secretary) stood removed on Tuesday, the process was likely to be delayed further. Though the new secretary, being an old hand at the food department since he also served as its director and may not take much time to settle down, he would certainly need some time to understand issues and reconnect to the system after his stint as Rawalpindi DCO and then Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) director-general.

The mandate of the committee includes finalising grinding charges alone. The chief Minister on Monday night told the millers that price of flour would, in any case, not go beyond Rs300 per 20kg. In case of the committee comes up with a recommendation of higher grinding charges for millers, the government will correspondingly reduce the wheat release price to accommodate the millers. But, the price would remain constant throughout the province during Ramazan.