KARACHI: Flour millers on Tuesday gave a 48-hour ultimatum to the Sindh government to allow free movement of wheat to Karachi from the interior of Sindh to avert any serious flour crisis in the metropolis.

“We will announce our future course of action in case grain is not allowed to enter Karachi,” said Chaudhry Aamir Abdullah, the chairman of the Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA), Sindh Zone.

He said that the production activities in 50 out of 92 mills in Karachi had already suspended due to non-availability of the commodity.

The arrival of wheat had been suspended for the last one week from the interior of Sindh due to a ban imposed by the Sindh government on its movement.

“Wheat stocks in mills have run out while those which have limited stocks are running their mills for only a few hours,” he said, adding that the mills in Karachi depended on the arrival of wheat from rural areas of Sindh.

He said a 100kg wheat bag rate in Sindh ranged between Rs10,300 and Rs10,400 while in Karachi it cost Rs11,800 in the open market. The price difference was being taken as ‘extortion’ at checkpoints, he alleged.

Millers and the Sindh government have been at loggerheads over the issue regarding seizure of trucks loaded with wheat arriving from other parts of Sindh to Karachi by the government to achieve its wheat procurement target of 1.4 million tonnes for this season.

As the millers fear a serious wheat and flour crisis as well as increase in prices, the Sindh food department was of the view that the wheat movement to Karachi from Sindh was restricted to curb hoarding across the province.

A government official said the flour mills had piled up a huge quantity of grain last year and sold in the market at higher rates.

Mr Abdullah rejected these allegations and said that no mill was involved in hoarding.

He said the provincial government was impounding truckloads of wheat and shifting it to its warehouses to achieve the wheat procurement targets.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2023