MULTAN, Sept 19: Experts have blamed wrong policies of the ministry of food, agriculture and livestock for rising trend in wheat and wheat flour prices despite a record bumper crop.

The everyday increase in wheat and wheat flour prices has put an additional burden on the people, especially those in the low-income group while hotels and restaurants have not only cut the size of bread, but have increased its price also.

Some government institutions are trying to prove that wheat crop estimates are untrue which is undoubtedly against the fact, they claimed.

In fact, the country has reaped more than 23 million tons this year while the estimated consumption is about 21.5 million tons which requires a policy to export surplus production at an opportune time to benefit wheat growers.

Although the government allowed export of surplus production that brought the wheat price to a reasonable level and growers were benefited for the first time under this regime but the government failed to maintain its export policy.

As the government announced export of surplus wheat, hoarders, profiteers and speculators became active and hoarded wheat after purchasing it from open market, with no clear intention for sale of stocks locally or abroad.

The experts further said the government should have allocated a quota for exporters and should have involved the State Bank to obtain a guarantee from exporters that wheat would be exported in time.

Since the country had been surpassing wheat target for the last three years, there was a need to establish a Federal Wheat Board, having representation of all stakeholders but the food ministry did not show interest in it.

There was about 1.5 million tons of surplus wheat while the government announced to import only one million tons to meet the shortage.

Now what has converted the surplus into deficit and who is the responsible for this deficit of 2.5 million tons of wheat, it is yet to be known.

Farmers bring wheat in the market from April to May 15. This year’s official price of wheat was Rs425 per maund while farmers never succeeded to obtain the official price so they got Rs10 against one kg wheat, it was stated.

After only four months when farmers have no concern with the product, the price of one kg flour is Rs19.

When wheat is not in the hands of farmers, there are only hoarders, profiteers and speculators who are bringing wheat in the market in a small quantity so that they can show the shortage.

The grinding capacity of Pakistani flour mills is four times greater as compared with its consumption.

In Punjab, the government was providing wheat quota to 3,000 flour mills till last year while this year 1,250 additional mills have been registered.

Nobody is ready to talk about smuggling of wheat and wheat flour from the NWFP and Balochistan to the neighboring countries.

A large quantity of flour is smuggled from Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, Layyah, Muzaffargarh and Multan districts via Balochistan while share of wheat flour in illegal trade is more than 75 per cent.