LAHORE, May 6: The food department is getting ready for a crackdown on unlicensed wheat hoarders in the province, which may start in the next one or two days.
According to sources in the department, hoarders have been placed in three categories: millers, licensed stockists and unlicensed hoarders. The department has decided to start with unlicensed hoarders who have no protection under the law.
The notices sent to hoarders two days ago was a legal formality and the department would not wait for replies, the sources said. It also need not give any further warning to hoarders under the Food Act, they claimed.
According to them, the department is currently coordinating with police and other law-enforcement agencies for the operation and giving finishing touches to the whole plan.
Under the Food Act, the department is entitled not only to take over stocks but even the premises where illegal stocks are kept. After dealing with unlicensed hoarders, it would go after the licensees.
Since licence-holders cannot be dealt under the Food Act, the department will have to resort to the Hoarding and Profiteering Act which falls under the purview of the district government.
Only the judicial magistrate and the district coordination officer can take them to task. The department will have to evolve a different strategy for them. But, the sources maintain, it will be done as the department does not intend to spare any one hoarding wheat under whatever pretext and legal cover.
It has already suspended permits in southern Punjab and told the private sector to get out of the procurement process. The same model can be repeated in other parts of the Punjab. The department has already dispatched teams to areas from where such reports are pouring in, they said.
After these two attempts, the department will review stocks' situation and decide the next strategy. It hopes that it will not have to resort to a similar operation against millers.
Millers have already been allowed to keep stocks equal to their mills' 24-hour grinding capacity. But if the departmental targets are not met at the end of first two attempts and millers are found hoarding wheat, the department would certainly go after them as well under the law, they said.
Meanwhile, the Punjab food department had procured 1.46 million tons of wheat till Wednesday evening. It hoped to cross the figure of 1.5 million tons by Thursday evening.
According to departmental officials, they were receiving around 75,000 tons of wheat a day, out of which 20 per cent was being contributed by hoarders who had started reducing their stocks after the notices issued by the department. The rest is coming from framers.
Mercifully, the procurement drive has been slow but steady. It has not experienced a dip except for a few days of the wet spell. The otherwise steady drive augurs well for department's efforts to achieve food security targets.
