BAHAWALPUR, Sept 4: Another attempt to smuggle about 715 flour bags to Sindh was foiled by Food department officials deployed at the Punjab-Sindh borders near Kot Sabzal on Friday night.
According to information received on Saturday, the alleged attempt was made through Chowk Chaddar and Taggoo Road, avoiding the KLP Road by the commission agents. The six trucks loaded with flour bags were intercepted by the food squad and seized the consignment. Two commission agents - Ashraf and Ghulam Rasool along with their accomplices were booked under the Food Control Act on the complaint of the Food department, Rahim Yar Khan.
It may be mentioned that hundreds of maunds of flour is smuggled into Sindh province from Punjab every day on account of inter-provincial ban on the wheat movement.
Meanwhile, Bahawalpur chamber of commerce and industry (BCCI) president Sheikh Muhammad Abbas Raza has demanded of prime minister Shaukat Aziz to lift inter-provincial ban on flour.
In his statement issued here on Saturday, the BCCI president said the ban imposed by the Punjab was creating difficulties for the people and governments of other provinces.
He said that flour millers of other provinces were also facing hardships and the government should take a sympathetic view in this matter.
CABINET: As the formation of the federal cabinet was completed on Saturday, the Bahawalpur district would remain unrepresented in it.
None of the five members of the national assembly from the Bahawalpur district has been tipped as federal or minister of state in the cabinet. Former prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali had also ignored the district during his tenure.
This is despite of the fact that all the five MNAs - Farooq Azam Malik, Syed Tasneem Nawaz Gardezi, Mian Riaz Hussain Peerzada and Makhdoom Syed Ali Hassan Gilani and Sardar Malik Aamir Yar Warren are staunch supporters of the government.
However, PPP's Mohtarma Shahnaz Sheikh, who joined the ruling coalition last year, was sworn in as minister of state. She has now moved to Lahore.
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