SWABI, Nov 29: The government has directed the officials of food department to probe the issue of selling substandard flour in Swabi which has led to the closure of a flour mills in the district.

In this connection a meeting was held at the office of DCO here on Saturday to ascertain that why consumers were reluctant to buy flour grinded by the local mills. The meeting also discussed ways and means to restore the confidence of consumers.

The meeting was attended by NWFP Minister for Social Welfare Sitara Ayaz, MPA Dr Yasmeen Jasim, Public Safety Commission chairman Khursheed Bacha, district president of Awami National Party Rehmanullah and officials of the food department. The meeting was presided over by DCO Zakir Khan Afridi.

It was learnt that dealers had told the mill owners that they could not sell their flour because people did not buy it because of its poor qaulity.

After the meeting Dr Yasmeen told Dawn that they had received reports from different circles that owing to the poor quality of locally grinded wheat flour, people preferred to buy flour coming from Punjab to the district.

The owners of local flour mills wanted to restore the confidence of people as they had suffered losses, she said.

It forced one of the mills to stop wheat grinding and if the prevailing situation continued other mill owners might be forced to give up producing flour, she added.

She said that the food staff would collect samples from mills in four different areas of the district which would be sent for laboratory test.

Some of the officials from Mardan and Peshawar would also join the district officials to dig out the cause and find out a possible solution, she said. “If the food officials found that the quality of the wheat supplied to the mills was not good then the wheat would be sent back,” she said.

To a query, she said that the food officials were told to submit their report within next few days to the DCO. After the report another meeting would be held to take a decision about the issue.