Flour crisis feared as price goes up.

Byline: Ali Hazrat Bacha

PESHAWAR -- The price of a 20kg wheat flour bag went up by Rs30 here on Wednesday as the local millers stopped supplies to hundreds of points selling flour in different parts of the provincial capital at subsidised rate.

Flour dealers of the main Rampura Market told Dawn that 20kg bag of mixed quality flour was sold for Rs920-Rs930 in the wholesale level against the previous rate of Rs870-Rs880 and the 20kg fine atta bag at Rs1,000.

The Bara Road wholesalers and retailers were found to have fixed the price at will.

According to the dealers, sales points were set up in different localities to provide flour to people at the controlled price of Rs808 per bag but they're closed at the moment.

They said wheat supply from Punjab had been suspended to the mills of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa leading to the closure of sales points.

Millers insist situation caused by halt to wheat supply from Punjab

The dealers said the flour price had increased in Punjab, where millers continuously demanded increase in wheat quota at the subsidised rate but the government didn't do so.

They added that the dealers of KP, too, had to purchase wheat at high price.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Flour Mills Association, Khyber Pakht-unkhwa, has warned a halt to the grinding of wheat over the suspension of supplies at subsidised rate from the provincial government.

It also feared a severe flour crisis in the province after Eidul Fitr.

'All of our 180 flour mills are to stop the grinding within a couple of days due to ban on wheat supply from Punjab KP flour mills,' association president Haji Mohammad Iqbal told Dawn.

He demanded the lifting of the ban on wheat supply from Punjab to KP to control flour price hike.

Meanwhile, the millers led by Mohammad Naeem Butt and office-bearers of the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry also held a meeting at the chamber's offices with SCCI president Engineer Maqsood Anwar Pervaiz in the chair.

They demanded of Chief Minister Mahmood Khan to intervene and ensure the restoration of wheat supply from Punjab to KP.

The millers said the government of Punjab had imposed an 'unconstitutional' and 'unlawful' ban on wheat transportation to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and that ban was a clear violation of Article 151 of the Constitution.

'Our province is deficient in wheat, so it mostly depends on Punjab to fulfil its needs,' a miller said.

He said wheat supply to local mills from the government's godowns had come to a halt and that all...

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