PESHAWAR, Sept 19: Persistent wheat shortage has dealt a serious blow to the labour market of the NWFP with thousands of labourers losing job as a result of downward trend in business activities across the province, according to market sources.
Thousands of daily wage-earners, according to business circles, have lost jobs in several parts of the province because of non-operation of a large number of flour mills as a result of wheat shortage.
A deputy director of the NWFP food directorate said that out of 260 flour mills in the province, about 150 were functional while the rest had suspended working because of non-availability of wheat in the local market.
"Even the functional mills are not operating to their full capacity," admitted an official of the food department. The shortage is so acute that restoration of wheat supplies to flour mills from the provincial government's warehouses, from Sept 1, 2004, did not cause much difference.
As mills in majority parts of the province were being supplied with wheat in meagre quantity, the market sources said. "The daily wheat supply from official storehouses are sufficient to operate my mill only for half-an-hour," said a miller on request of anonymity.
According to the Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA), NWFP, each of the functional mills in Peshawar district are being provided with 37 bags of 100kg each daily. "How can this much of wheat keep my mill running for the whole of eight hour shift," said the mill owner.
This situation caused further dent to the labour market across the province as flour millers, forced by the wheat crisis, laid off, in several instances, non-permanent staff and daily wagers to avoid heavy loss.
The PFMA claims that this wheat crisis has affected some 130,000 daily wagers and their families who are directly and indirectly associated with the flour mills sector.
Saadat Khan, 38, said the crisis had rendered the labour market more unpredictable and multiplied the financial and social problems of daily wagers. "If the mill is not operating, it means you may or may not get work for a day or two in a week," said Saadat, a father of two sons and six daughters.
He said the mill he was working in as a daily wager presently had only two wagers. "In the good old days when the mill was operating to its full capacity, there were more daily wagers," said the daily wager.
Millers said they were left with no choice but laying-off daily wagers to remain in profit zone. "Otherwise, we would be out of business because we simply cannot afford to maintain large squads of daily wagers and non-permanent staffers," said an office-bearer of the local chapter of the PFMA.
He said that even the closed mills were charged property tax, professional tax in addition to fixed monthly electricity bills. The four-month ban on the transportation of wheat from Punjab to other federating units and insufficient wheat supplies from the provincial government's go-downs have forced several millers to quit the business.
"Some closed-down mills," said a miller "in Peshawar and Charsadda have been converted into private schools and ware-houses". Business circles, when asked, did not attach much hope to increase in daily quota of wheat from the NWFP government.
The provincial government, said official sources, would procure 300,000 tons wheat out of a total of 10m tons commodity being imported to meet the country's total consumption requirements.
A consignment of 15,000 tons from the Russian imported wheat would shortly arrive in the province. "Even if the provincial government received its quota of imported wheat, disbursement from its warehouses to mills would not grow, leaving the millers to rely on procurement from Punjab's market," said a spokesman for the PFMA, NWFP.
In addition to putting the local labour market under stress, the crisis is believed to have caused substantial financial loss to the public exchequer and revenue loss to the public sector utility organizations including the Water and Power Development Authority and Pakistan Telecommunication Limited.
According to PFMA's estimates, the national exchequer suffered monthly loss of about Rs18 million because of the recession experienced by the NWFP flour mills sector. Whereas, Wapda also suffered a decrease of about Rs100 million in its monthly revenue because of slowing down of industrial activities.
