Atta crisis worsens in Balochistan

Price of 20-kg flour bag jumps to Rs3,000

QUETTA:

Flour crisis has further worsened in Quetta and parts of Balochistan as the price of a 20-kilo flour bag suddenly jumped from Rs2,000 to Rs3,000 in the open market on Tuesday.

The Balochistan government has also completely failed to provide wheat and flour to the masses at subsidized rates. The situation prompted the Balochistan Chief Minister Mir Quddus Bizenjo to order setting up of flour stalls to provide flour at cheaper prices in the Railway Station area of Quetta.

Crowds of people rushed to the Railway Station locality to purchase flour at controlled rate but only a few lucky ones managed to buy it due to large throng of people and mismanagement.

“I have been waiting since morning but there is no flour as there are more people and less flour,” a local Muhammad Jalal said.

Deputy Commissioner Quetta Mir Shehak Baloch told The Express Tribune that the administration has decided to set up 12 points in Quetta city to provide flour at official rates to consumers.

Flour Mills Association has accused the Balochistan government of failure to purchase wheat on time to build its reserves.

Badruddin Kakar, the central leader of the association, said that the food department purchased less than 3 lakh bags from Naseerabad division as compared to one million bags last year.

“This crisis was expected because of the government failure to procure wheat,” Kakar said.

He also demanded of the authorities to probe into the distribution of wheat seeds worth Rs2 billion among the flood affected people across Balochistan.

Most of the people sold the wheat in the open market instead of cultivating it, he claimed.

There was no immediate response from the agriculture department to these allegations. The Balochistan government had decided to provide seeds to the growers and flood-affected people for cultivation to mitigate the impact of devastating floods that destroyed standing crops in the province last year.

Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Balochistan Mir Imran Gichki chaired a high level meeting which reviewed the flour crisis and made a number of decisions in this regard.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2023.