LAHORE, Sept 20: The government has appointed DCOs as focal persons to meet flour shortage in the districts directing them to ensure supply of the most essential commodity within two hours of receiving such a report.

Local Government and Law Minister Basharat Raja said this at a news conference held here at the Civil Secretariat on Thursday. He was flanked by Food Minister Hussain Jahanian Gardezi, food secretary and representatives of flour mills association.

The minister said the arrangement had been made to provide relief to the people experiencing flour shortage.

The DCOs, he said, would be bound to ensure flour supply to any area in their respective jurisdictions on complaints by people.

He said under chief minister’s directions, the provincial government had started releasing 17,862 tons of wheat to flour mills daily to ensure abundant supply of flour to the market. The release was against the actual daily demand of 10,592 tons.

He claimed the markets in the urban centres were flooded with flour on Wednesday and a lot many bags remained unsold in the special Sasta Bazars.

The minister said the province had a stock of 2.5 million ton wheat which was in addition to 300,000 tons purchased from Passco. “We have stocks for one full year,” he claimed.

He parried a question on the reported smuggling of wheat and said it was the duty of the federal government to curb it. Despite the smuggling, the province had adequate reserves of wheat, he added.

He denied the province faced the flour crisis because of the failure of the government to timely release wheat to the millers.

He said like all provinces, Punjab started releasing the commodity on September 7 and this was on schedule.

The minister also parried the question when asked who was actually responsible for the flour crisis and said: “let us control the situation first and then we will fix the responsibility (for the crisis).”

He claimed the crisis existed three days ago and there had been a marked improvement now.

The minister explained that the import or export of wheat was a federal subject and provinces just got the supply according to their demand.