PESHAWAR, Oct 24: The NWFP government on Friday termed the ban on movement of wheat and flour by Punjab as unconstitutional and said that it was being used as a tool by the Punjab government.

NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussein and Food Minister Shuja Khan referring to some advertisements in the media that Punjab was supplying wheat and flour to the Frontier, they said it was mere propaganda and the advertisement was totally unfounded.

They told reporters at a joint press conference that the Punjab government was not allowing dealers of the NWFP to purchase wheat or flour from the open market, “that is why the people in our province were facing hardships in getting the commodity”.

The information minister, who is also the official spokesman of the ANP-PPP coalition government in NWFP, said that the advertisements had created an impression that Punjab was supplying sufficient flour to the province and the prevailing crisis was due to the incompetence of the NWFP government.

“Different price of flour in two provinces of the same country is not understandable,” said the minister. The information minister accused that Punjab was using wheat as a weapon against other provinces, saying that in case of autonomy, the Frontier would not have faced the problem as it would have in position to suspend supply of gas and electricity to Punjab.

Mr Iftikhar claimed that not only the Frontier, but other provinces were also victims of this maltreatment of Punjab and urged both the federal and provincial government to fulfil their constitutional obligations and remove the existing restrictions on supply of wheat and flour to the province.

The food minister said that according to an understanding, reached between the NWFP and Punjab, during the interim government before February 18, Punjab had pledged supply of 0.7 million ton wheat to the province. He said that the province had never demanded supply of fine flour and plain and Punjab was supplying it on its own.

“Before, Ramazan, Punjab was supplying 4,000 ton flour to the province on daily basis, which was later cut down to 2,000 ton and now jacked up to 3,000 ton,” he said. The minister said plain and fine flour were not their requirement and it was value added products of the flour mills of Punjab. He said that they were buying wheat from the private sector and due to the restrictions the price had gone up many fold.

Mr Shuja dispelled the impression of the smuggling of flour to the tribal areas and said that movement of food items inside the country was not a crime. However, if Punjab had any objection then the issue should be taken up with the central government. The daily requirement of the NWFP was 8,000 ton wheat flour and the province had to pay an extra amount of Rs8 billion in head of wheat subsidy, he added.