KARACHI, July 14: The flour millers in Karachi have been persuaded to put off their strike on Tuesday and sell wheat flour at Rs24.50 a kg to the consumers. Millers say the price of wheat in open market on Monday was Rs23 plus for a kg and the sale of flour at Rs24.50 is impossible but Agha Taimur, the minister now looking after food in Sindh Cabinet, was not ready to hear their pleadings.

Sindh’s Food Minister Mir Nadir Magsi is away in the USA with his family members, who was blamed by the millers for deploying a private force on more than a dozen check posts set up on about 300 miles stretch of Super Highway from Nawabshah to zero point near Karachi.

Following protests from the Karachi millers, the chief minister withdrew the ban on movement of wheat from interior to Karachi. After a temporary relief in prices from Rs2,450 on a 100 kg bag to Rs2,175, the prices went up again to Rs2,250-2,325 on a 100 kg bag.

While the government accused millers, wheat brokers and profiteers of hoarding wheat, the traders and millers in Karachi blame powerful landed gentry, assembly members and ministers of hoarding wheat in anticipation of getting good prices in future.

The government confiscated trucks carrying wheat from upcountry to Karachi and also suspended permits of four mills in the city. “Confiscated wheat will be given back to their owners and proposed action against four mills will be withdrawn,’’ a participant of the meeting said.

On Monday, seven millers, including Iqbal Daud, the chairman of Sindh chapter of All Pakistan Flour Mills Association and Mumtaz Sheikh from Larkana, said to be a close business partner of PPP federal minister Khurshid Shah, were kept waiting for more than three hours in the minister’s room.

“We were given an understanding of having a meeting with the chief minister on Monday,” one of the participants of the meting informed, who added that the minister asked millers not to pay more than Rs22 a kg on purchase of wheat in the open market.

An official of the government said that the meeting was successful and millers agreed to call off their scheduled strike on Tuesday and that they will offer wheat flour at Rs24.50 a kg to the consumers.

The millers, however, said that their arguments were not heard. “But buying wheat at more than Rs23 a kg from open market and selling flour at Rs24.50 is impossible,” a miller said.

None of them said that the mills would be closed down but quoted minister, who advised them not to pay more than Rs22 on a kg of wheat.