PESHAWAR, July 8: Peshawar’s main flour market situated on Rampura Gate has experienced a boom with flour dealers’ business thriving ever since the government of Punjab imposed a ban on transporting wheat out of Punjab.

The number of trucks transporting flour from Punjab to the Rampura Gate market every day recorded a considerable increase after June 30, when the government of Punjab invoked section 144, prohibiting movement of wheat out of Punjab.

Though the decision has cast negative effects on the flour mills of the NWFP which are facing eventual closure if the ban is not lifted at the earliest, the move has certainly given the Rampura Gate traders a welcome respite.

The atta (flour) consumers/ small atta dealers and bakers at Peshawar’s suburban areas who have been previously purchasing flour directly from the flour mills of the provincial capital have now started making purchases from the Rampura Gate market, giving a boost to the trade and business activities at the main flour market of the city.

“Earlier, (before the ban) bakers, atta consumers and shopkeepers selling flour in the urban centres of the provincial capital used to purchase flour bags from the Rampura Gate, now the market has registered a sharp growth in the number of its clients as people from the outskirts of Peshawar have also started business with the Rampura Gate market’s dealers,” said Abdul Latif, a flour dealer.

Another dealer said the ban had not affected the people of the NWFP as there was no shortage of flour in the local market.

Rather, he added, the ban had actually affected the NWFP millers who were likely to lose considerable ground to the millers of Punjab as far as supply of wheat to Afghanistan was concerned.

“Now Afghan dealers have started lifting flour bags from the Rampura Gate market where fine quality wheat flour from Punjab is available in abundance,” said Abdul Latif — a point also confirmed by other dealers.

He said not only the wheat flour supplied from Punjab was of higher quality than the locally produced flour, Punjab’s commodity was also more cost-effective for the dealers.

Talking to Dawn at the Rampura Gate market, Noor Saeed, a flour dealer who conducts business at Pabbi, 14km from Peshawar, said the locally produced flour had no demand in the urban centres of Peshawar where consumers preferred flour produced in Punjab.

“The fact is the locally produced flour is of no match to the commodity imported from Punjab,” said Noor Saeed.