LAHORE: Chief Minister Usman Buzdar has said a 20-kg flour bag is available in abundance at the fixed price of Rs860 and the Punjab is the only province where flour bags are provided to the people at official rate.

Presiding over a meeting held here on Monday to review flour and sugar rates and stocks situation in the province, he expressed satisfaction over the arrangements to keep a check on the prices of both daily-use commodities.

The meeting decided to take all possible steps for strict monitoring of flour stocks in Punjab to stop its smuggling to other provinces.

The government is providing wheat to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on a daily basis. It is also giving subsidies to the tune of billions of rupees to provide flour to people at fixed rates.

“The subsidy is right of the poor, while the provision of subsidised flour to the elite is a cruelty to the poor,” Buzdar said.

While issuing directions to develop an effective mechanism for targeted flour subsidy, the chief minister asked the food department to prepare a comprehensive plan in this regard.

The Punjab government released 659,000 tonnes of wheat to flour mills and it was providing over 17,000 tonnes wheat to the mills every day, he said, and added: “This helped stabilise flour prices in the market.”

Punjab has around 3.7 million tonnes of wheat reserves.

The meeting also decided to take every possible step to stabilise the sugar rates.

The chief minister made it clear that an increase in sugar and flour prices won’t be tolerated and directed the administrative officers to submit reports to him by reviewing prices after visiting the markets.

“I will also review the field situation by going to different markets and no one can be allowed to exploit the people,” concluded the CM.

Senior Minister Abdul Aleem Khan, Punjab chief secretary, secretaries of industries and information departments also attended the meeting. The food secretary gave a detailed briefing on prices and stocks situation in the province.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2020