LAHORE, Oct 13: The government of Punjab claimed on Monday that it had been supplying 5,000 tons of flour and fine flour (maida) a day to the NWFP and Balochistan for the past three days.

A spokesman for the Punjab food department said that traders from the two provinces were free to buy from private millers from the official quota of 5,000 tons.

“There is no ban on flour movement and the provinces are getting the required quantity from Punjab.”

According to him, both the provinces are wrongly describing a regulatory mechanism as a ban.

“This mechanism is necessary to know who is purchasing flour and where is he taking it. Without such registered sale and purchase, only hoarders and stockists will benefit and the Punjab government will be blamed for it.”Punjab wanted the flour trade a government-to-government affair, rather than leaving it in the hands of private firms and letting the common man suffer, the spokesman added.

The NWFP had been getting 2,000 tons of flour and an equal quantity of fine flour on a daily basis, he said, adding: “The quantity is more than sufficient for the province’s needs.”

He said the two provinces had been unable to lift the entire quota over the past three days.

The Punjab government, he said, had so far allocated 136,000 tons of wheat for the NWFP. But the province was yet to lift around 20,000 tons.

Similarly, Balochistan was allocated 30,000 tons and it has lifted only 20,000 tons.

“Punjab cannot be blamed for the mismanagement of flour trade by the two provinces. Punjab is living on imported wheat of much inferior quality and providing other provinces with high quality domestic wheat.”

The spokesman denied reports that Sindh was being denied flour and said it had not formally sought any flour.

He said that over 1.7 million tons of imported wheat was expected to arrive this month and the Punjab food department would get only 480,000 tons and the rest would be going to other provinces.

“The imported wheat should be sufficient to ease pressure on the local market if other provinces properly manage their markets,” he said.