KARACHI, Aug 13: Of the 40 flour mills in the city, about a dozen are still without electricity. As many as 40 mills (20 in Korangi and 20 in other areas) remained without power since heavy rains lashed the city on Thursday. Although the KESC restored supply to 28 mills on Monday morning, it was still to restore power to the rest of the mills.

Chairman, Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA) Sindh Circle, Ansar Jawed said there had been no shortage of flour (Atta No2.5) in the city as retailers had stocks in hands for two to three days in their shops.

He said flour millers had not increased prices despite facing huge financial losses due to collapse of marketing system of flour.

He, however, ruled any increase in prices of flour as mills would start running as soon as power is restored.

“Flour millers are considering taking legal action against the KESC because of huge losses,” he said, without giving the exact figure of financial losses since Thursday’s closure of the mills.

Sindh has a total of 150 flour mills, of which 75 are situated in Karachi. Each mills provides direct and indirect employment to an estimated 100 people.

The consumption of Atta No 2.5 in Karachi is estimated at 1.5 million bags of 80kgs per month. He said atta rates remained at Rs1,200 per 80kg bag, while flour bag of 100kg was available at Rs 1,255.

On wheat situation, he said the government is yet to come out with actual wheat crop size, and it is still stuck on 23.5 million production for this season.

“I still say that wheat production will not exceed 22 million tons this season,” Ansar said, adding the government is likely to provide wheat to the millers in the first week of September.

The PFMA (Sindh Circle) has urged the Sindh food department to release 1.5 million tons of wheat as compared with last year’s 0.9 million tons.

General Secretary, Karachi Retail Grocers Group (KRGG), Mohammad Farid Qureishi, said of the 50 mills, electricity had been restored to only eight to 10 flour mills in Korangi.

“If the problem persists, the market will face severe shortage of flour in the next two days. Much depends on the running of mills,” he said, adding “the retailers usually maintain stocks of two days.”

He said power failures since Thursday are yet to result in any price-hike.