LAHORE, Nov 7: The Pakistan Agriculture Services and Supply Corporation can not sell ‘even a grain’ of wheat to the private sector in the Punjab.

This was claimed by Punjab Food Secretary Junaid Iqbal while talking to Dawn on Wednesday.

He said that PASSCO’s mandate “is to supply wheat to deficit provinces or for export. The Flour Milling Controlling Order and the Food Stuff Control Act are provincial legislatures. Both empower the provincial food department to regulate flour mills. In the presence of these laws, the Passco cannot sell wheat to the private sector in the Punjab.

“The food department has been protecting flour mills for the last 10 years and has paid around Rs30 billion as subsidy to them. After this investment, no one can be allowed to violate the rules that clearly state that only food department can regulate the mills and the millers,” he said.

About the millers threat to increase flour price if they were not supplied wheat at the prices offered by PASSCO, the secretary said that the government had fixed the price of wheat at Rs320 per 40 kg and of the flour at Rs189 per 20 kg. The millers cannot increase the price as long they were getting wheat on the government fixed rate, he said.

The food department has surplus stocks of wheat. The millers are free to purchase wheat according to their requirement. If the millers increase prices, it would be clear violation of law and would be dealt with accordingly, he said.

Commenting on the food department’s assertion, a PASSCO official said that the corporation was only a stock holder for the Federal Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Livestock and has policy of its own. The ministry was informed that the corporation has surplus wheat stock. It asked the corporation to find export markets and float tender for domestic buyers.

The PASSCO followed the instruction of the ministry, he said.

About the price factor, the official said that the corporation would refer the offers to the ministry and follow whatever instruction it would get.

The PASSCO official said that there was hardly any deficit province in the country. The corporation has not sufficient indoor storage capacity and wanted to sell wheat to every available customer.

Meanwhile, the Punjab chapter of the Pakistan Flour Mills Association has said that there was no bar on increasing flour price and the association will not accept any such restriction in this regard.

PFMA officials Bilal Sufi, Saeed Iqbal and Mujahid Khursheed said on Wednesday that flour would be sold according to the prices of wheat in the market.

In a statement, they alleged that 3.7 million tons of wheat was lying in the open and demanded an inquiry into the matter.