LAHORE: Expressing satisfaction that a 20-kg flour bag is available in abundance at the fixed price of Rs 860, Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar said on Monday that Punjab is the only province where flour bags are provided to the people at a fixed rate.

The CM held a meeting, to review rates and stock situation of sugar and flour in the province, in which it was decided to take every possible administrative step to further strict the monitoring for stopping the smuggling of flour from the province. Secretary Food briefed the participants of the meeting about the reserves and rates of sugar and flour in the province.

Addressing the meeting, the CM stated that the Punjab government is providing wheat to KPK province on a daily basis apart from giving subsidies to the tune of billions of rupees to provide flour at fixed rates. The subsidy is the right of the poor while the provision of subsidized flour to the elite is the cruelty with the poor, he added. He directed for developing an effective mechanism for targeted flour subsidy.

The Punjab government has released 659,000 tonnes wheat to the flour mills and it is providing more than 17 thousand tonnes wheat to flour mills every day, he said. Punjab has around 3.7 million tonnes wheat reserves. The CM also directed strict monitoring for stabilizing the price of flour and the meeting decided to take every possible step to stabilize the rates of sugar.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020