KARACHI: Flour millers on Tuesday enhanced the prices of various varieties of flour by Re1 to Rs3 per kg in Karachi, citing suspension in arrival of wheat from the interior of Sindh and rising grain rates in the open market.

The new price of flour No 2.5, fixed by the flour millers, is Rs46 per kilogram against the earlier Rs45 per kg, while fine and superfine flour (maida) rates have been increased to Rs50 from Rs47 per kg.

The new rate of a 10kg flour bag has been jacked up to Rs465 from Rs455.

Exactly a month back, flour mills had raised prices by Rs3 per kg on different flour varieties citing the same reasons.

Chairman of the Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA), Sindh zone, Khalid Masood told Dawn that the disruption in arrival of wheat from Sindh’s interior had taken up wheat prices in the open market to Rs4,350 from Rs4,000 per 100kg bag a month back. In the third week of May, the wheat bag was priced Rs3,500.

He said the Sindh government had so far procured 1.2 million tonnes of wheat from the growers since March 26 against its target of 1.4m tonnes for this season.

“What is the benefit of boosting procurement target when consumers are getting costly flour?” he said, adding that the Sindh government was procuring wheat from growers at Rs35 per kg while in Karachi’s open market it sold at Rs43.50 per kg. After taking out Rs1.5 per kg as transport charges, it still leaves a cushion of Rs7 per kg.

“Around 70 operating mills in Karachi are getting 40,000-50,000 wheat bags of 100kg each daily as against the requirement of 60,000-70,000,” Mr Masood said.

He said the millers in Karachi were dependent on wheat from the interior of Sindh as Punjab had imposed a ban on interprovincial wheat movement.

The PFMA chief said there was “no use” of taking up the wheat supply issue with Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah last month.

The issue of intercepting trailer trucks and releasing the trucks and drivers after taking ‘bribes’ persisted. In some cases, wheat was being shifted to government warehouses to meet its procurement target, he claimed.

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2020