The people of Karachi will continue to pay highest price for the staple food in the country even after the release of 25,000 tonnes of subsidised wheat to city flour mills and Chakkies.
The Sindh food department claimed to have completed its exercise to supply subsidised wheat to genuine grinders according to their capacity, and also introduced check and balances, but it failed to evolve a strategy to check commercial exploitation of subsidised wheat by the flour mills.
According to sources close to flour mills, around 67 percent of subsidised wheat found its way to commercial organisation-bakeries, hotels, sweetmeat shops and Tandoors-spread all over the city in shape of bran, Maida, Suji, fine Atta while the rest are being sold in open market in balancing the supply and demand ratio which leads to price-hike.
They said the short supply provides a ready market to wheat flour from Punjab and other neighbouring districts, Thatta, Dadu, and Hyderabad.
Punjab taking the advantage of the situation has allowed its four mills to market their second quality wheat flour to market in deficit province of the country, including Sindh to help its profiteering mafia even violated the Article 151 of the Constitution by imposing ban on inter-provincial movement of wheat, said thesources.
Despite the fact that majority of Sindh Cabinet members, including the provincial food and agriculture minister expressed strong resentment, and demanded that supply of atta from Punjab should be stopped unless the ban on inter-provincial wheat has withdrawn, but no action has been taken probably on account of 67 percent shortfall of wheat flour in Karachi due to commercial exploitation of subsidised wheat by flour mills.
There is no ratio of grinding wheat has been fixed nor has the price of wheat flour been announced till date, as such it is being feared that the Karachi population will continue to pay the highest price of wheat flour in the country.