December 05, 2007	Wednesday	Ziqa'ad 24, 1428

PESHAWAR, Dec 4: Consumers in Peshawar are paying Rs100 to Rs115 more than those of other provinces, especially Punjab, for a 20-kilogramme bag of wheat flour of ordinary quality.

Flour dealers told Dawn on Tuesday that a flour bag of 20kg in Punjab was sold at Rs285, whereas the same quality and quantity of flour was available in Peshawar for Rs400 or more.

Haji Rambeel Khan, the President of the NWFP Food Grain Dealers Association, explaining the reasons behind the difference in the price of flour said: “Flour being sold in the open markets of Punjab comes from subsidised wheat which the government releases on a daily basis.

“The mills in the NWFP, on the other hand, procure wheat from the open market for producing flour for the NWFP and Afghanistan markets, which is naturally costlier.”

The Punjab government, he said, kept a close eye on the prices and ensured that the wheat quota given to mills was only used for the production of subsidised flour, which was available there at Rs285 per 20kg.

In the NWFP, he said, the government issued 1,500 tons of wheat daily to flour mills, which were supposed to supply the commodity to the market at Rs305 in retail, but not a single bag of such flour was released to the local market to provide relief to the people.

Market sources told Dawn that currently about 100 flour mills were operating in the Frontier province and most of them preferred to sell the commodity in Afghanistan and Central Asian Republics (CARs), where they could make extra money.

They said that a 20-kg bag of wheat flour was sold in Jalalabad or other parts of Afghanistan at Rs500 to Rs550.

Recently, NWFP Chief Secretary Sahabzada Riaz Noor directed setting up of fair price shops in Peshawar to make a 20-kg bag of flour available at Rs305 in the open market, but the bags are supplied to these so-called fair price shops in extremely low quantity, forcing consumers to buy the commodity from the open market. The authorities are taking no action to stop this menace.

The hike in the prices of flour is putting pressure on the Utility Stores, where a 20-kg flour bag, if available at all, is sold at Rs260. Consumers complained that the supply of flour bags to Utility Stores was minimal and most of the time flour was not available at the outlets.

On Tuesday, thousands of consumers, including women, were seen queued up for hours in front of a Utility Store outlet in the Cantonment area to buy the commodity.

The consumers also complained that officially a 20-kg bag of flour was sold at Rs260, but it was mandatory for the buyers to purchase noodles or match boxes or anything else worth Rs40 along with flour, otherwise the staff of the out-let would not give the bag.