LAHORE: Blaming the food department for violating the standard operating procedures (SOPs) related to grinding of wheat received from official storage and sale of products prepared from it, flour millers in Punjab have threatened to suspend supplies to the market from Tuesday (Feb 14) if their ‘rightful’ demands are not met with.

The department, on the other hand, claims that action is being taken against the mills defaulting on the agreed instructions.

The Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA) Punjab chapter chairman Iftikhar Muttoo told a press conference here on Friday that the association members would stop accepting wheat supplies from the food department from Monday and suspend flour supply to the market next day if their grievances were not addressed by that time.

The mills violating the association’s decision would be expelled from the body, he warned.

He said the Punjab cabinet’s latest decision of imposing a blanket ban on inter-district and inter-province transportation of wheat and its products and confiscating the consignment(s) in violation of the direction and auctioning the confiscated commodity in the market was not acceptable to the millers.

He said Punjab had not yet announced a minimum support price of wheat unlike Sindh, where it had been fixed at Rs4,000 per maund.

He alleged that specific mills were being targeted and being closed by the department on ‘minor’ irregularities, whereas shopkeepers were reluctant to buy flour from them because of the new rules related to keeping record of the buyers of the commodity.

He demanded as there was no shortage of flour anywhere in the province, action against millers be put to an end, and inspection of the units and imposition of penalties, in case of defaults, should be as per agreed SOPs, otherwise, the mills would go on strike.

A spokesperson for the food department, however, said the inspections were being carried out as per rules and that the mills embezzling the official wheat quota would definitely have to face the music.

He claimed that an average flour mill in Lahore was getting Rs2.6 million subsidy per day, and Rs300m subsidy was being extended to these mills only, adding that total 900 mills across the province were availing this facility.

He said that every effort would be made so that the benefit of this subsidy could reach the consumers and the mills collecting wheat at Rs2,300 per maund from the department, but selling it in the market at Rs4,200 per maund, instead of grinding and selling it as per official rates would face legal action.

The spokesperson said a total of 7,302 tonnes of subsidised wheat was being provided to flour mills of Lahore division, of which 6,048 tonnes to Lahore district, 729 tonnes to Sheikhupura, 150 tonnes to Nankana and 368 tonnes to Kasur districts.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2023