Govt to clamp down on wheat hoarders

Imran stresses need for better inter-provincial coordination and collaborative efforts

ISLAMABAD:

The federal government on Tuesday decided to launch a crackdown on wheat hoarders across the country amid a consistent spike in the prices of the crop and flour.

Presiding over a meeting, Prime Minister Imran Khan instructed the provincial governments to ensure adequate supply of wheat and flour and stability in their prices.

The premier stressed the need for better inter-provincial coordination and collaborative administrative efforts for this purpose.

The participants of the meeting, held to review the measures to ensure the availability of wheat and flour at affordable rates, also discussed the prices of sugar.

The chief secretaries of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa briefed the meeting about the availability of wheat and flour in their respective provinces.

The Punjab chief secretary said a 20-kg bag of flour was available for Rs860 across the province. The Punjab government is releasing 18,000 tons of wheat on a daily basis to ensure ample availability of wheat and about 20% of flour is being sent to K-P. He also gave a briefing on the availability and prices of sugar in the province.

The K-P chief secretary informed the participants of the meeting about measures taken to prevent the smuggling of wheat.

The prime minister directed the chief secretaries of K-P and Balochistan to keep wheat smuggling in check.

He also asked the Sindh chief secretary to urgently finalise the wheat release policy for the province keeping the experience of last year in view.

The prime minister told the chief secretaries to ensure a zero-tolerance policy against the adulteration of food items.

The meeting was attended by federal ministers Hammad Azhar and Fakhar Imam, advisers Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Abdul Razzaq Dawood, special assistant Dr Shahbaz Gill among others. The provincial chief secretaries participated in the meeting via video link.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had recently cautioned that the higher wheat and flour prices in Punjab could destabilise the market in his province as well.

While the release of wheat by the Sindh food department normally commences in September, Sindh Food Secretary Laiq Ahmed informed the chief minister that the Punjab government had decided to release the crop forthwith because of the crisis in the province.

He added that the wheat and flour prices in Sindh were still lower than those in Punjab.

Murad said the federal government should also release wheat earlier following Punjab's lead so that wheat prices could be stabilised in the markets.

Still reeling from the previous flour crisis that led to a surge in its prices, the country appears to be heading towards another one following the early release of wheat stocks by Punjab, lack of proper planning due to the unavailability of accurate production and consumption data and non-procurement of wheat by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

The PTI government had taken notice of the recent wheat and flour crisis and an inquiry was held into the flour mill owners involved in cartelisation that caused the price hike.

In bid to break the cartel of millers and stabilise prices in the local market, Punjab had released wheat stocks early in the market instead of doing it by end of the year as it normally did.

Policymakers have already raised questions about the accuracy of the production and consumption data and expressed concerns over the early release of the stocks that could further aggravate the situation. So far, the government has remained unsuccessful in bringing down flour prices.