Flour millers belonging to 'Founders Group' in the Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA), strongly reacting to imposition of section 153/A in the budget for year 2012-13, has urged the government to immediately withdraw this proposal as it may hit hardly both the flour milling industry and flour consumers.
Addressing a press conference here on Friday, Founders Group Chairman Bilal Sufi, Co-Chairman Khalique Arshad, Haji Maqsood Ahmad, Mian Abdus Sattar and Mujahid Khurshid alleged that imposition of this clause under which all the manufacturers are supposed to deduct one percent of the sale to their dealers and retailers as income tax and deposit it in government treasury, may hit 1,350 flour millers hard. They claimed that this decision might turn the industry in to scrap.
They said the government before introducing such steps should reflect on the situation of every industry. They feared that flour mills were already passing through a phase of tough competition with each other and said buyer might switch over to another mill from their existing sellers if they started deducting tax.
The situation would lead to two consequences that included a fresh wave of price hike of flour and its products and second it might fell short of the requirement as small shopkeeper would stop keeping the flour bags on their shops, Founders Group leaders added.
They also warned the government not to put in money in Benazir Income Support Fund and proposed that the government should initiate Public Distribution System (PDS) like India in which subsidised flour, rice and sugar was given to the common man. They said this system was successfully being practised in India then why not in Pakistan? Flour millers also proposed that the government should withdraw GST from the electricity bills of the industry and immediately withdraw section 153/A introduced in the budget 2012-13 to save the nation from price hike of flour and its shortage crisis.