PESHAWAR, Sept 4: Flour mills in the NWFP have been preferring to export flour to Afghanistan rather than selling it in the local markets where low-priced flour from Punjab is available in abundance.

Afghanistan has emerged as an ideal destination for the NWFP flour mills.

Flour mills owners in the NWFP say that they want to sell their products in the local market but they cannot compete with rates offered by Punjab’s mills.

They say it is impossible to offer flour at rates prevailing in Punjab because the NWFP is dependent for wheat on Punjab.

“Transportation and other costs push up the price for the Frontier”, they added.

The mill owners also attribute insufficient supply of wheat from the NWFP food department to the prevailing crisis.

A flour mill owner told Dawn that in the year 2000 every mill was provided about 400 bags of wheat for a day, whereas now the figure had gone down to 40 bags.

This had been affecting the overall functioning of the industry, he said, adding that the machinery of a mill remained in operation hardly for two hours a day.

He said the local mills had no other option but to export the flour to Afghanistan.

He said at present out of 350 flour mills in the NWFP, hardly 80 were functioning and most of them exported flour to Afghanistan.

Talking to Dawn, All Pakistan Flour Mills Association provincial chairman Naeem Butt said that the Punjab government gave subsidy on wheat and extended various other facilities to its flour mills industry.

He said: “The facilities ultimately facilitate its flour mills industry in producing cheap flour comparing to the NWFP’s industry.”

He was of the view that in the NWFP, the flour mills industry was a less priority area and the government encouraged export of low-priced flour from Punjab.

Mr Butt said the NWFP government had been earmarking Rs900 million for subsidy on wheat in budgets for the last couple of years.

But, he pointed out, the relief had not reached to general public yet.

When contacted, a senior official at the NWFP food department said that the provincial government was releasing wheat in line with the quota allotted by the federal government.

About disparities in prices of flour in the NWFP and Punjab, he said since the province did not grow wheat as per its requirement, transportation of wheat from Punjab increased production cost that ultimately pushed the prices upward.