Members of Pakistan Flour Mills Association, Punjab, have announced to close down their mills from Saturday, May 17, in protest against, what they said, the attitude of provincial Food Department, which is creating numerous problems for millers in carrying out their business.
This was announced by PFMA Punjab President Habib-ur-Rehman Khan Leghari while addressing a press conference here on Thursday. He was flanked by a large number of PFMA members including Haji Bashir, Khaliq Arshad, Haji Maqsud and others.
He said they had an agreement with the Punjab government's officials that each flour mill could keep wheat sufficient for 72 hours with it. The mills, which purchased wheat from other districts, would be issued permits for its transportation, while there would be no need of such permit for the mills purchasing wheat from the district, where they are located.
Leghari said in practice, the food department did not follow this agreement and the district administration, revenue department, and police had made it impossible to transport wheat by the millers and permits were not being honoured. He said they met food department officials many times and apprised them of the problems.
Later, at a general body meeting of flour millers from across the Punjab, a supreme council was constituted comprising eight former chairmen and the sitting chairman, he added. The supreme council reviewed the non-availability of wheat, increasing wheat prices in the open market and other problems faced by the millers.
He said the meeting tried to convey all these problems to the Chief Minister Punjab, Chief Secretary and Provincial food committee but to no avail. He said later they held a meeting on Thursday and observed that millers' permits were not being honoured, while wheat bought by millers at the rate of Rs 700 per maund from the open market, was confiscated by the food department who paid only Rs 625 per maund.
It was causing huge loss to the flour millers. He claimed that now the department had even started lifting wheat from the godowns of the flour millers. He said that they had found that it was not possible for them to sell flour at the present prices.
He said all the flourmills of Rawalpindi division have been closed due to non availability of wheat. He said that a severe flour crisis could occur in the province, when the millers would go on strike and the government would be responsible for it.
He said that the permits issued to selected flourmills for supply of flour to Balochistan and NWFP were not acceptable to the association, demanding these permits should be issued in consultation with the PFMA.
The Punjab Food Minister, Malik Nadeem Kamran when approached said that he would be holding a meeting with the flour millers on Friday and all their genuine grievances would be resolved.
He said that wheat crisis was a national crisis and all the stakeholders had to work together to resolve the problem. He, however, said that some people were also trying to take undue advantage of these permits and the department concerned would never allow this.
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