April 10, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 3, 1429

ISLAMABAD, April 9: Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has received a formal request to wind up the Federal Food Committee (FFC) which was constituted by President Pervez Musharraf in January to take over the countrywide flour crisis.

Sources told Dawn on Wednesday that FFC chairman Let-Gen (retd) Farooq Ahmed Khan had written a letter to the premier a couple of days back requesting him to wind up the committee. The chairman was of the view that the committee had already performed its task of ensuring the supply and bringing down the price of flour.

The price of flour increased from Rs12-13 a kg to Rs22-25 and remained at that level for more than two months of the crisis that had erupted in November.

According to the sources, the FFC chairman considered that it was the duty of the provincial food departments to ensure wheat and flour supplies after the arrival of the new crop.

However, some other sources told Dawn that the request for winding up the FFC was made after the committee had failed to secure a proper mandate for itself at a time when it needed more powers to check smuggling and hoarding of wheat and flour and taken on a strong wheat mafia once referred to by the chairman as “black sheep”.

From the beginning, provinces had opposed the FFC which was also ignored by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet while fixing the wheat procurement price for the new crop. The FFC had suggested a price of over Rs600 per 40kg well on time while the ECC decided to give farmers only Rs510.

It was only after the intervention of Prime Minister Gilani that the procurement price was increased to Rs625. But because of the delay in the decision the farmers had started selling their new crop to middleman and private parties at higher rates.

But, the sources said, the reason behind the request for winding up the committee was that the price of flour would further go up by Rs6-7 per kilogram from April 15 when mills would start grinding freshly harvested wheat purchased at the increased rate.

This would take the official mills price of flour beyond Rs20 per kilogram.

During the last flour crisis, some 6,000 Rangers and Frontier Constabulary (FC) personnel had been deployed on premises of flour mills in all the provinces to check hoarding and smuggling. Now, Rangers and FC personnel have been called back.

In Punjab, however, officials of the revenue department are now being deployed at flour mills to check hoarding and ensure proper grinding. But, things are likely to deteriorate in the coming days as price of flour would go up owing to reduced supplies.