PESHAWAR/MANSEHRA: Flour mills owners have held food minister Qalandar Khan Lodhi and officials of his department responsible for increasing price of flour in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Speaking at a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Friday, Pakistan Flour Mills Association’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa group leader Mohammad Naeem Butt urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to replace the food minister and officials of his department for failing to resolve the flour crisis in the province.

Mr Butt pointed out that stocks of wheat in government warehouses had gone down to only 150,000 tons, which was less than two weeks consumption of the province. He said KP’s annual wheat requirements stood at around 4.6 million tons.

“Despite repeated warnings the government has failed to find a solution to the problem,” Mr Butt lamented. He warned a serious flour crisis might erupt soon if the provincial government did not take steps to resolve the issue at the earliest.

He added that hundreds of workers employed by flour mills in the province had lost their jobs, while the prices of flour kept increasing due to negligence of the food minister and his team.

Say province has wheat stock for less than two weeks

Mr Butt said the Punjab government had completed its wheat procurement and started supply of the commodity to mills at subsidised price. He said the owners of flour mills in KP had repeatedly requested the food minister and the relevant officials to take up the issue with Punjab to restore the supply to KP, but to no avail. He said despite orders of the prime minister to ensure smooth flour supply to the provinces, the Punjab government was not ready to allow the supply to KP.

He said if the supply from Punjab to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was not restored immediately the flour crisis would worsen in the province. He said the government should stop discriminatory attitude with KP as it was also part of the country.

He said the Punjab government had set up checkpoints to restrict transportation of the commodity to KP on the pretext of flour smuggling to Afghanistan, adding the reports about smuggling were wrong.

The association’s leader pointed out that Afghanistan had started purchase of wheat and wheat flour from Kazakhstan at very reasonable price, and thus did not need to purchase the commodity at higher price from Pakistan.

Mr Butt also demanded of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to take up the issue with the federal and Punjab governments.

On the occasion, association’s provincial president Haji Mohammad Iqbal demanded implementation of the Punjab government’s policy in KP to improve flour quality in the province.

Efforts were made to contact the food minister for his comments on the issue, but he could not be approached via his telephone.

Meanwhile, the flour mills association has demanded of the government to return the Rs1 billion, which it received from the millers as the price of bags.

“The receipt of the money from flour mills owners is against the existing food policy, thus the government should return it back to the millers,” Malik Muzaffar, a spokesman of the association, told reporters in Mansehra on Friday.

He said bag (Bardana) charges were not being received by the Punjab and Sindh governments from flour mills owners

“Our association has decided not to collect the daily wheat quota of 2,000 tons from the government if it is not increased to at least 5,000 tons a day,” he said.

Mr Muzaffar said the price of 20kg flour bag transported from Punjab to KP had increased to Rs1,200, and if the government didn’t increase the daily wheat quota the price would further increase in local markets.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2020