KARACHI, Dec 12: There has been no respite in consumers’ suffering at the utility stores despite substantial increase in supply of wheat flour bags during the last one month.

Subsidy on flour bags and little check on price hike in retail market can be attributed as a couple of major reasons for the utility stores corporation’s failure to meet the growing demand of wheat flour.

A wheat flour bag of 10 kilogrammes at the utility stores costs Rs90 less than the price fixed in retail market. To save Rs90 on a 10kg bag, the price-conscious people afford to make pain-staking and time-consuming queues in the chilly mornings before the arrival of the delivery truck loaded with wheat flour bags.

Only a few consumers get succeed in procuring the subsidized atta who manage to get in line much ahead of the truck’s arrival at most of the utility stores. People joining the queues after the arrival of delivery vehicle generally return home empty handed.

Though an exchange of words between the utility store staff and consumers is common, there were instances when people desperate for the bags broke open the doors. Police contingents have been also seen at many stores to prevent any untoward incident.

Many consumers complained that the stores were still facing shortages, as the supply did not meet the burgeoning demand of wheat flour.

Masood Alam Niazi, Zonal Manager Sindh of the Utility Store Corporation, said that big stores were getting over 300 bags daily each still the rush of buyers could not be handled. He said a year back there were 38 in the metropolis while total stores stood at 120 at present.

“Unless the open market rates of wheat flour were not controlled, the utility stores will continue to remain under pressure. Even the increased supply of bags cannot solve the problem,” he said.

“Our Islamabad Head Office has asked the federal government to double the supply of wheat from the current 50,000 tonnes to 100,000 tonnes,” he said.

The zonal manager also blamed general public to some extent for demanding wheat flour bags more than their actual requirement. The utility stores though offer only one bag to a customer it cannot check the duplication if three to four members of a house are standing in the same queue for securing flour bags. “We do not have any mechanism to check the duplication of purchases,” Mr Masood said.

After wheat flour, ghee and cooking oil pouch were in demand that had been triggered by phenomenal jump in price of ghee and cooking oil up to Rs105 per kg, he said, adding that the same items were available for Rs67 per kg at utility stores.

On January 1, 2007 the retail prices of atta No.2.5 and chakki atta were Rs15 and Rs17 per kilogramme as compared with Rs22 and Rs26 per kg respectively, being sold in retail market at present.

Though the city government had been trying to arrest the price hike by imposing heavy fines on retailers no serious effort had been made to check the wheat flour rate at the mills’ and wholesale stages as the city government thinks that it is a provincial subject.