LAHORE, April 7: The Punjab government will procure up to 4.5 million tons of wheat this season to build its operational and strategic stocks, says Food Secretary Seerat Asghar.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, he said though the federal government had fixed target of only three million tons, the provincial government planned to go beyond that by at least 1.5 million tons.

The secretary insisted that there was no actual shortage of wheat, but “an impression” was being created by the vested interest.

Squarely blaming the millers for current crunch, he said they not only stopped grinding their own stock with the announcement of new procurement price but also started hoarding wheat being released by the food department with hope of making windfall profits because of price differential.

Till three days before the announcement of new procurement price, he said, the millers were grinding over 3,500 tons from their own declared stocks and added that within two days of new procurement price, it dropped to 1,800 tons. It showed the cause of crisis, he said.

This necessitated few administrative measures, which had been taken by the government rather reluctantly and results have started showing themselves, he said. With district administration taking over flour supply, the situation eased a bit, he claimed.

“On Sunday, the district administration took 63,000 flour bags of 20kg to Sunday Bazaars and it took the entire day to sell those bags, which only proves that there was no crisis in the market as being painted by the vested interest,” he said.

Defending the timing of announcement of new procurement price, he said: “It became necessary because of market forces rather than anything else. The Sindh government could not purchase even one ton of wheat in the first week of its procurement drive at the rate of Rs510 per 40kg. Thus, the federal government was left with no option, but to increase the procurement price to facilitate Sindh and Punjab food departments.”

He was of the view the millers’ greed for windfall profits created the current crisis rather than the new procurement price as they knew that they would earn a phenomenal profit of Rs4 per kilo if they held wheat for 15 days.

Dispelling the impression that there was any wheat shortage in the province, he said the department had around 133,000 tons while it would receive 205,000 tons more in the next few days.

He said in all, the department had around 400,000 tons of wheat which was more than sufficient for the requirement of the province. The Trading Corporation Pakistan (TCP) was sending around 3,000 to 5,000 tons of wheat daily which was less than provincial requirement and the TCP authorities had promised to send 10,000 tons daily in a week, he added.

Punjab Food Director Waseem Mukhtar said he had a very detailed meeting with flour millers on February 26 and from that day till the end of March, there was no problem in the supply of flour in Lahore. But as soon as new support price was announced, the differential attracted the vested interest, he added.

He said requirement of Lahore was about 90,000 bags of 20kg per day and to meet it flourmills of Lahore were producing 65,000 bags and 15,000 more bags were coming from Sheikhupura.