ONE doesn’t know whether the Karachi Bakers Group still exists. Well, it did in the 1960s and was very active, and concerned, when the crisis of maida (fine wheat flour) shortage hit the city. It led to the suspension of bread-making in bakeries for quite a few days. By the fourth week of May, 1968 about 250 bakeries had stopped making bread. Whatever supply of maida was available, had become pricier by 25 per cent.

It was suspected that another 100 bakeries, including a biscuit-making factory, might go out of production by May 21, 1968 if they failed to get maida by the morning of that day. Also, some of the flour mills refused to release their stocks till their deputation returned from Lahore, where it had gone some days back to plead with the government to either reduce the imported wheat procurement rates or allow them to increase the wheat flour prices. As a consequence, the Karachi Bakers Group called an emergency meeting on May 21 in which they passed a resolution urging the provincial government to direct the roller flour mills to supply maida directly to the bakeries at not more than Rs55 per maund. It didn’t elicit a positive response.

On May 22, the secretary of the group feared that all of the 550 city bakeries (Yes, there were 550 bakeries in Karachi at the time) might close down in a day because of non-availability of fine wheat flour. Over 400 bakeries had already gone out of production. Meanwhile, in some outlying areas bread prices had gone up by about 50 per cent. But the shortage was not much felt in the central part of the city as a few big bakeries were still producing enough bread to meet the local demand.

On May 23, the group directed all its 550 members to suspend baking bread until maida became available at a reasonable price. About 500 of the bakeries –– most of them small –– had already stopped doing so. The smaller units were of the view that since most of them could no longer afford to bake, the big bakeries should in sympathy with their fellow bakers suspend their businesses. They would, however, continue to prepare other items such as biscuits and cakes with very little maida.

On the other hand, the regional deputy director of food told Dawn that most of the roller flour mills in Sindh had resumed production. He said he hoped that some of the mills in Karachi might also start working on May 24.

The Bakers Group was not on the same page, though. On May 24, in a general body meeting they endorsed the decision of its executive committee to suspend baking bread with immediate effect. But as it always happens, for every force, a counter force is produced. So another bakers’ organisation, Karachi Bakers and Confectioners Association, appealed to all bakers not to suspend work in order to avoid inconvenience to the public.

Things were getting out of hand, because the crisis reached a stage where all the vermicelli and biscuit factories closed down on May 25. The Karachi Vermicelli Manufacturers Association and the West Pakistan Biscuits and Confectionery Manufacturers Group, at their general body meetings held separately, too decided to suspend production until their demands were met.

Now let’s move from serious news items to a relatively lighter one. On May 21, it was announced that inmates in the Karachi zoo were to be called by human pet names. A zoo official said giving such names to the animals would bring them ‘nearer’ to the keepers. Naming animals in the zoo was a tradition observed for the inmates in foreign countries, the official added. A few nameplates had already been put on the cages of animals and others were in the process of being named. While the two lions were named ‘Gauhar’ and ‘Moti’, the tigers were given the name of ‘Badal’ and ‘Bijli’. Names chosen for the tiny marmosets were ‘Chunnu’ and ‘Chunia Begum’. Two bears — one male and the other female — that were caught in Gilgit had been given the names of ‘Dil Pari’ and ‘Sherdil’.

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2018