PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Friday backtracked on Peshawar district administration’s decision to increase the roti price and restored the old price with reduced weight.

The decision was taken at a meeting attended by office-bearers of Nanbais Association Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, food minister Qalandar Khan Lodhi and deputy commissioner Mohammad Ali Asghar.

On July 12, the district administration had increased bread price to Rs15 after a daylong shutter down strike by nanabis.

The administration had also announced to increase roti weight to 190 gram from 150 gram. During the past few days, the district administration had also rounded up scores of nanbis for selling bread of less weight.

Peshawar deputy commissioner Ali Asghar told Dawn that the government had decided to revert to the old roti price of Rs10 weighing 130 gram.

Nanbais association’s chairman Haji Mohammad Iqbal also confirmed the development. He said at least 600 nanabis had been arrested by the district administration in Peshawar and were languishing in jails.

He said authorities were refusing to release the arrested nanbis unless the bread price was brought down. He said even selling bread with reduced weight would incur heavy losses on them.

Haji Iqbal said the government had told them that the bread price would come down after export of flour to Afghanistan was halted. He said they would wait and see if flour price came down and then they would decide their future course of action.

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2019