KARACHI, Dec 9: Sindh caretaker Chief Minister Justice (retd) Abdul Qadir Halepota taking serious notice of the closure of 26 flour mills in Karachi and severe flour crisis in Sindh has ordered officials to formulate a plan to take action against all those responsible for the artificial crisis.

The chief minister has summoned a meeting on Monday at the Chief Minister’s House to discuss the situation. He has also assured the stakeholders of taking all possible steps to ensure availability of wheat flour at reasonable rates.

However, the chairman of Pakistan Flour Mills Association, Sindh chapter, Chaudhry Ansar Javed, expressed fear that if the government failed to take immediate steps for the supply of wheat, closure of more flour mills would become inevitable.

Talking to Dawn, he said that during the past 20 days, around 30 out of the 75 flour mills in Karachi had been closed down due to short supply of wheat in the open market.

Mr Javed said that he had already warned the authorities concerned of the looming flour crisis some 10 days ago. Unfortunately, the authorities had failed to take necessary measures that had resulted in the closure of many flour mills, thus aggravating the situation, he said.

Mr Javed said that the government provided the flour mills with 35 per cent of the required wheat at subsidised rates while the mills had to rely on the open market to meet rest of the wheat demand.

He said that 30 per cent of the required wheat had to be procured from Karachi while for the rest the flour mills had to make arrangement from Punjab. The PFMA chairman said that as Eidul Azha was approaching, the flour mills were also facing immense difficulties in the transportation of wheat from Punjab.

Speaking about the price hike of wheat flour, he said that some 15 days back, the flour mills were purchasing a 100kg wheat bag for Rs1,550 from the open market but on Saturday the price of the same quantity of wheat had been increased to Rs1,850. Similarly, he added, the ex-mill rate per 80kg bag was Rs1,450 ten days back but currently it was available at Rs1,525.

Citing another reason for the closure of flour mills, he said that wheat flour consumption in winter also increased from 1.6 million bags to 1.7 million bags. Keeping in view the increase in demand, the floor mills were assured a 20 per cent increase in supply from Dec 1, which never materialised.