May 17, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 11, 1429

LAHORE, May 16: Flour millers on Friday withdrew the strike call and agreed to sell the commodity at the current price “for the time being”.

The decision came about a day after the flour millers announced another massive rise in the price of the commodity. The Punjab government sprang into action and expressed willingness to lift the inter-district wheat movement ban.

Earlier, the millers and the government locked horns over the price issue, with both sides sticking to their positions. The mill owners kept insisting that the wheat price in the open market had gone past Rs700 per 40kg and the current rate (based on Rs625 price support) stood irrelevant. Increase in flour price was, therefore, unavoidable, they said.

The difference of opinion took place at a meeting between the millers and the food department officials, led by the minister concerned. The meeting was convened when Chief Minister Dost Muhammad Khosa rang up Pakistan Flour Mills Association Chairman Habibur Rehman Leghari and asked him to meet the officials to discuss the issue of strike.

The chief minister offered a meeting to the millers on Saturday (today) to iron out the differences between the millers and the department. “The government is ready to concede on two fronts: lifting of inter-district ban (on wheat transportation) and allowing the millers to buy wheat,” an official of the department said. But, he affirmed, the government would no way accept the flour price increase.

“If the department can purchase wheat at Rs625 per 40kg, why can’t the millers procure it at the same price,” he said. A minor increase in the price owing to transportation issue was understandable, he said, but increase of Rs20 to Rs25 on a 20kg bag made no sense.

The millers would have to continue with the current price, but they could be accommodated on other issues, “the genuine ones”, he said.

Khaleeq Arshad of the PFMA said since the government had agreed to lift ban and exclude all agencies, except the food department, from checking wheat movement, the millers had decided to call off the strike.

He said the millers noted with concern at the meeting that they were not getting wheat at the official rate of Rs625 per 40kg. The department was procuring wheat at the official rate from interior parts of Punjab whereas the millers needed wheat near urban centres. Wheat transportation cost had increased in the wake of high oil prices, the millers said.

Both parties, he said, decided to wait for the market trend after lifting of ban and defer the price decision till next week. Hopefully, the market price of wheat would start sliding after lifting of ban, making the current flour price commercially acceptable. But the millers and the department would sit together next week and reconsider the price issue, he added.

The PFMA said the government had also lifted ban on the inter-district movement of flour. Flour could be supplied also to Balochistan and the NWFP after consultation between the millers and the food department.