Minister vows to shut ‘ghost flour mills’

Says smuggling, hoarding will not be tolerated

LAHORE: Provincial Senior Minister Abdul Aleem Khan has said ghost flour mills would be closed across Punjab and they would not get the official quota of wheat from the food department. He said strict action would be taken against those mills which were only getting wheat quota from government and not working properly.

The senior minister expressed these views while talking to an 11-member delegation of Progressive Group of Flour Mills which included owners of different flour mills of Punjab. Provincial Minister Mian Khalid Mahmood was also present on the occasion.



Aleem said the food department has been directed to adopt a pragmatic policy in which better mechanisms for distribution of wheat among flour mills would be introduced and existing policies would be updated.

The senior minister expressed satisfaction over the fact that wheat production in Punjab is expected to be higher than the target this year and the procurement drive is going on satisfactorily. Abdul Aleem Khan appealed to the flour mills owners to come forward and identify those involved in creating artificial scarcity and hoarding.

In his conversation, the senior minister further said strict action was being taken against wheat hoarding in Punjab under a new ordinance.

The illegal warehouses have been sealed in Dera Ghazi Khan where 30,000 wheat bags have been recovered.

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Aleem stressed that besides the food department, intelligence agencies have also been called in to help in cracking down on the mafia. He listened to the demands of the mills owners and assured them of a solution.

Among the meeting participants were owners of various flour mills including Mian Muhammad Shafiq, Mian Khaliq Arshad, Majid Abdullah, Sheikh Fayyaz Ahmed and Khurram Shehzad.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 29^th, 2020.