PESHAWAR: Flour mills owners have expressed serious concern over the increasing price of flour in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and held food minister and officials of the food department responsible for the hike in the commodity's cost.

Pakistan Flour Mills Association's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) group leader Muhammad Naeem Butt while talking to this scribe here on Saturday said that the stocks of wheat at KP government warehouses had gone down to 150,000 tonnes, which is only enough to fulfil less than two weeks of the province's wheat consumption. He said that KP's annual wheat requirements stood at around 4.6 million tonnes, while the provincial government currently had a stock of just 150,000 tonnes.

"Despite repeated warnings to the KP government, authorities have failed to find a solution to the problem," Butt said. He warned that a serious flour crisis might erupt soon, if the provincial government did not take serious steps to resolve the issue at the earliest.

He added that hundreds of workers belonging to flour mills in the province had lost their jobs while the prices of flour continued on an increasing trajectory due to negligence of the concerned food minister and his team.

Butt said that Punjab government had completed its wheat procurement and started supply of the commodity to its local mills on subsidized price but KP was yet to take the issue serious. He said the owners of flour mills had repeatedly requested the food minister and officials of food department to take up the issue with Punjab to restore the supply but to no avail.

He said despite order of Prime Minister Imran Khan to ensure smooth flour supply to the provinces Punjab government was not ready to allow the supply to KP. PFMA group leader said the price of flour was increased on daily basis and if the supply from Punjab to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was not restored immediately the flour crisis would worsen in the province. He said that KP was also a part of the country and government should stop the discriminatory attitude with it in order to overcome the growing price of wheat flour in the province. He said that the Punjab government had set up checkpoints to restrict transportation of the commodity to KP illegally.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020