ISLAMABAD, Jan 14: The Federal Food Committee has asked the Water and Power Development Authority to ensure 19-hour daily electricity supply to flour mills.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, FFC Chairman Let Gen (Retd) Farooq Ahmed Khan said wheat releases to mills had been increased from 34,200 to 43,700 tons a day to tide over the flour crisis.

He said that because of the Ashura holidays, wheat would be released on the 8th of Muharram to ensure availability of flour from the following day.

He said the FFC had issued special instructions to improve flour supply to the remote districts of Dadu, Thatta and Badin in Sindh which were facing severe crisis.

Gen Farooq said the government was focussing on augmenting supplies to the mills instead of going after hoarders.

“I am not responsible for who did what in the past. I am here to improve the situation through supplies and bring down prices.”

He said the FFC members had been meeting twice daily and were working on a war footing. But the committee needed full cooperation from Wapda, he said, adding that Water Secretary Ismael Qureshi had been asked to tell Wapda to ensure uninterrupted 19-hour electricity supply to mills even in far-off areas.

He said 5,000 paramilitary personnel had been deployed at 506 flour mills and hundreds of distribution points in the country. In the NWFP, police personnel were being deployed to back the Frontier Constabulary which was also maintaining law and order in sensitive areas, he added.

So far, the FFC chairman said, the government had completed import of 214,000 tons while 242,000 tons of wheat would arrive by the end of the month.

Letters of credit (LCs) for 600,000 tons of wheat would be opened on Jan 17 and the government might add another half a million tons. So, the government was likely to order import of 1.1 million tons at a time, he said.

Gen Farooq said after opening the LCs, the committee would know the names of the countries from where wheat would be imported and also the time of its landing in Pakistan.

He said the federal government was ready to help the provincial governments in supply of imported wheat from Karachi if they faced transportation problems.

He said the government had no intension to ban the inter-provincial movement of flour, but would strictly monitor its supply to Balochistan and the NWFP to discourage smuggling to Afghanistan.

The FFC chief said paramilitary forces were also gathering information about the release of wheat to non-functioning mills.

Out of 634 mills, only 318 were functioning in Punjab. That’s why, the government had decided not to increase daily wheat supplies to Punjab, he said.

From Monday Sindh started getting 9,000 tons of wheat instead of its official daily quota of 6,000; the NWFP 6,500 instead of 3,000 tons; and Balochistan 2,000 tons instead of 1,200 tons. Similarly, the daily wheat quota of the Utility Stores Corporation had been increased from 3,000 tons to 5,000 tons, he said.