KARACHI, Aug 25: With Ramazan only a week away the Sindh government has neither announced the issue price nor quota allocation policy for release of wheat from its stocks to flour mills in the city. Millers attribute the government silence on issue price and quota allocation to official pressure on them to offer wheat flour at Rs22 a kg to consumers during the fasting month.

No government official was ready to offer any explanation for this undue delay in announcement. Millers are not ready to offer wheat at Rs22 per kg when indicative issue price of wheat is being mentioned at Rs19.35 per kg. “The government will give hardly 30 per cent of our wheat requirement at its indicated issue price of Rs1,935 for a 100-kg bag,’’ Iqbal Daud Pakwala, the chairman of Sindh circle of All Pakistan Flour Mills Association told Dawn from Sukkur on telephone.

Millers say that the government estimates city population on 1998 official census figures according to which hardly 11 million people live in the city, whereas the actual number is close to 20 million. Based on assumption that the per capita consumption of wheat is 40 kg a year, the officials in Sindh Food department estimate per day wheat needs of Karachi at about 4,000 tons a day against which the indication is that only 1,200 tons of wheat will be released everyday to the local flour mills.“This means we will have to buy about 4,000 tons wheat or even more every day from the open market’’ a local miller said, who revealed that open market price of wheat is Rs2,300 for a 100-kg bag. “A bag of 100-kg of flour will have about 31 kg of wheat from official stocks at the rate of Rs19.35 a kg and 72 kg of wheat to be purchased from the open market at Rs23 a kg,’’ he explained.

“Add to the combined prices of wheat from two sources the cost of grinding, 10 per cent presumptive income tax on electricity bills and the impact of withdrawal of subsidy on bills, the cost on one kg will be anywhere from Rs25 to Rs26 a kg,” he added.

“We are offering the government 30 per cent of our product for re-purchase against wheat given to us on issue price,’’ Iqbal Daud said. By this offer, the millers would be providing grinding product of the wheat to be given to them on official issue price of Rs19.35 a kg. But the millers want a blanket permission to sell 70 per cent of their product to the consumers at market prices.

“We will offer the government 30 per cent of our product only in 10-kg bags,’’ flour mills leader made it clear.

The government is expected to make some decision one or two days before advent of Ramazan, he said. On Monday, the market was abuzz with rumours that the Punjab government was enforcing restriction on movement of wheat flour also.

Since harvest of the crop in March and April, the Punjab government has imposed a restriction on wheat movement outside the province, which created severe scarcity in NWFP and Balochistan and pushed up prices in Karachi.

The last Ramazan was pretty tough for the believers because of high prices of flour and scarcity at times. Market analysts fear a far more worsening situation for the consumers in the city after a week.