January 13, 2008	Sunday	Muharram 03, 1429

PESHAWAR, Jan 12: The measures taken by the federal and provincial governments to overcome the flour crisis in the NWFP have proved ineffective as consumers are still paying Rs25 for one kilogram of flour, around Rs10 more than what they paid before the crisis.

Dealers in Rampura Gate, the main commodity market in Peshawar, confirmed that prices of flour being brought from Punjab had not seen a major downward trend over the last one week. On Saturday, a 20kg bag of Punjab flour was being sold for Rs450-460 in the wholesale market while its retail price ranged between Rs480 and Rs490.

The Frontier government has increased the daily wheat quota for local mills from 1,500 tons to 4,000 tons and fair price shops are selling the commodity at a subsidised rate of Rs310 per 20kg bag.

However, the local market is yet to see the bulk supply from the millers.

The district administration in Peshawar is distributing 24,000 bags of 20kg equally among 92 union councils daily, but a majority of consumers is unable to get the subsidised flour even after waiting for hours in front of fair price shops.

City District Nazim Haji Ghulam Ali said that the current volume of supply was insufficient to cater to the demand and added that both the federal and provincial governments should take immediate measures.

Talking to Dawn on Saturday, he pointed out that currently the local demand for flour was more than 40,000 bags of 20kg per day while the government was supplying just 24,000 bags.

Naeem Butt, chairman of the All Pakistan Flour Mills Association, also complained of insufficient supply, but did not agree with the volume of demand quoted by the district nazim.

He said that the supply of 20kg flour bags to Peshawar was 70,000 per day in 1997 when its population was 2.2 million, adding that now the population of the city was stated to be over 2.5 million which meant that flour supply should have been increased accordingly.