KARACHI, Aug 20: The government is fixing an issue price of Rs1,935 for a 100-kg bag of wheat to be released from official stocks to the flour mills from next week.

However, the quota allocation for each mill is likely to be hardly one quarter of what was being allocated in previous years.

The food department officials held a meeting with the leaders of flour mills industry here on Wednesday and hinted at releasing wheat to them from next Saturday at officially indicated issue price.

“But the department has assessed per day wheat demand of wheat at 4,000 tons a day on the basis of government counted figures of population in the city,” a senior leader of the Sindh Circle of Pakistan Flour Mills Association said.

Millers say that wheat price in the open market is now Rs2,400 a bag of 100 kilogram and will start crawling up with advent of Ramazan. There is hardly 60,000 tons of wheat in the government stocks in Karachi which is sufficient for only two weeks. It means that the government will have to relay entirely on imported wheat for which the average landed cost is being assessed at Rs3,000 for a 100-kg bag.

Even if the government starts releasing wheat from the officials stocks late this month, the mills will be forced to buy this grain from open market at a high cost as Punjab is refusing to lift ban on inter-provincial wheat movement even though the prime minister himself has made a request.

“Wheat flour may cost anywhere from Rs28 to Rs32 a kilogram during Ramzan,” he said. The Sindh Circle of All Pakistan Wheat Flour Mills Association is meeting on Thursday to decide the rate on which wheat flour would be made available to the consumers in Ramazan.

The association leaders in their meeting with Food Department officials on Wednesday complained of harassment from a private force that raids the flour mills every other day.

The milling industry leaders want the federal government to announcement of official procurement for wheat next month when sowing commences so that it proves to be an incentive for farmers.

The Food Department Secretary advised the association to make this complaint in writing so that it could be taken up with the chief minister and also with the federal government authorities.

On Thursday, the association will decide on this issue whether to make this formal complaint in writing or not.

A meeting of Federal Food Committee is also being held next Saturday at Islamabad with former finance and foreign minister of PML-N Mr Sartaj Aziz in the chair.