QCCI slams Punjab’s wheat policy

Terms province’s ‘move to stop wheat supply to Balochistan illegal’

QUETTA: The Quetta Chamber of Commerce and Industry (QCCI) has criticised Punjab’s wheat policy saying it would increase flour and bread prices in Balochistan.

“Punjab has tightened its wheat monitoring policy and announced that it would sell wheat on a subsided rate but that policy shouldn’t be applicable in the open market,” QCCI Senior Vice President Badar ud Din Kakar told a delegation of the Balochistan Flour Mills Association led by its chairman, Syed Saleh Agha. “This policy is unconstitutional and illicit,” he added.

The delegation informed the QCCI vice president that Punjab was preventing vehicles from transporting wheat to other provinces.

“The Punjab government has imposed the policy on its flour mills and providing them wheat on a subsidized rate and halting trucks carrying wheat to Balochistan and other provinces,” Agha told Kakar.

The QCCI vice president condemned the move and said the Balochistan government and food department should intervene in the matter to avoid a crisis in the province.

“The Punjab government’s policy will increase wheat and flour prices in Balochistan and further add to the woes of its people,” he added. Kakar assured the QCCI’s full support and assistance to the provincial flour mill association on the issue and vowed to raise the matter with the government.

There is a flour crisis in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa too where mill owners have threatened to launch a protest across the province unless the provincial food department started releasing wheat to their mills by October 25.

Pakistan Flour Mills Association-Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chapter Chairman Mohammad Iqbal said wheat supply to flour mills in Punjab had started from August 19 but mills in the K-P had yet to start work.

He termed the provincial food department’s reluctance to release wheat to mills a part of the government’s ‘anti-labourer’ and ‘industry-hostile’ policy.

The PFMA provincial chief claimed that around 130,000 metric tonnes of wheat were currently available in government granaries which could fulfill the province’s food requirements for the next 45 days.

“K-P’s total wheat demand is about 4.4 million metric tonnes against the province’s production of 1.2 million metric tonnes,” Iqbal said, adding that the flour industry was currently receiving just 2,000 metric tonnes of wheat against a demand of 6,000 metric tonnes daily, affecting the availability of flour to people on subsidised rates.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2019.