ISLAMABAD, June 1: The price of wheat flour is again rising and it has jumped to Rs600 per 20kg in the NWFP and tribal areas.

The price is increasing despite the arrival of new crop, the government’s move to import two million tons of wheat and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari’s efforts to get 500,000 tons of wheat from the United States.

In the NWFP and the tribal areas, flour is selling at over Rs30 a kg because of the ban on transporting wheat from Punjab since the arrival of the new crop. Before the ban, flour was being sold at around Rs350 per 20kg bag.

The situation in Punjab is far from comfortable and there is an acute shortage of flour in the province, especially in Rawalpindi and Islamabad where the flour mills association has threatened to shut down mills if the government did not increase the official flour price to Rs400 per 20kg.

Talks between the Punjab Flour Mills Association and the provincial food department to resolve the issue remained inconclusive till the filing of this report.

Flour price has been constantly increasing over the past six months. In November 2007, the price of a 20kg flour bag was about Rs270 to Rs280. Before its disappearance from markets in the twin cities, it was selling at Rs375.

Sources in the ministry of food and agriculture told Dawn that the flour price may rise further because the government had raised the official procurement price to Rs625 per 40kg from last year’s Rs460.

They said the price in the NWFP, which heavily depended on supply from Punjab, would also rise.

Pakistan missed this year’s wheat production target of 24 million tons by 2.2 million tons. The government had set 5 million tons procurement target this year which now seems to be unachievable.

The procurement has fallen much short of the Federal Food Committee’s goal. It had called for procuring a minimum of seven million tons to keep the strategic wheat reserves at a reasonable level.

In a related development, the price of sugar has also increased.

The wholesale price of 40kg of sugar rose to Rs15,000 from Rs13,000, an increase of Rs5 a kg.