Criticizing the ban imposed by the provincial government on open movement of wheat, the Kissan Board Pakistan (KBP) has alleged that it will expose the growers once again to atta mafia (flour mafia).

The KBP welcomed the free gunny bags distribution policy of the Punjab food department but said the ban on the free movement of wheat and discouraging attitude on procurement center will do no good to the farmers.

KBP Central President Chaudhry Nisar Ahmad while talking to media said on Thursday said that the government should withdraw all sort of ban on free movement of wheat to save the growers from clutches of atta mafia.

Nisar claimed that locust attack coupled with torrential rains and hailstorm had caused damage to wheat crop standing over hundreds of thousands of acres in certain areas of the province but no one is paying attention to this humanitarian crisis. He warned that if farmers are not patronized there might be a crash of the agricultural economy next year.

He was of the view that ban on free movement of wheat would create a flour crisis in those districts of the province where wheat production had registered a fall. People and farmers will be fleeced by atta mafia, he alleged.