April 22, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 15, 1429

MUZAFFARGARH, April 21: Police and food squads of the district government caught 6,000 bags of flour weighing 50 kilo each being smuggled to the NWFP from various places during the last two weeks.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, District Coordination Officer (DCO) Dr Akhtar Nazeer Warraich said drivers of 13 trucks being used for smuggling of flour to other districts were booked under relevant clauses of the Food Act.

DPO Maqsood Hasan said the police would help the food department curb the menace of wheat and flour smuggling. DSP City Saif Khattak said that flourmills involved in smuggling would be sealed.

District Food Controller Chaudhry Ghafoor said the department had released around 84,000 gunny bags to farmers in the last 48 hours.

He said the department had also set up 15 centres where it had started buying wheat from farmers at the rate of Rs625 per 40kg. He said that he had received complaints that flourmills owners had sent their brokers to farmers to buy wheat at Rs725 per 40kg.

He said the DCO ordered the revenue department to approach farmers and urge them to sell wheat to the food department alone. He said that this district would achieve the target of wheat quota if the revenue teams succeeded in persuading farmers.

SEALED: The DCO has sealed a tea-manufacturing factory on the orders of Dera Ghazi Khan consumer court judge.

The court had accepted a petition filed by Syed Ali Shah complaining that a local tea-manufacturing factory was supplying phoney product.

The samples of the manufactured tea were sent to the PCSIR Laboratories, which reported that the product was phoney. The court then directed the DCO to take action, which he did.