Bread crisis averted as tandoors reopen

The negotiations between the Naanbai Association and the district administration were partially successful, leading to the reopening of 18,000 tandoors in the Rawalpindi district on Sunday. The association was earlier observing a shutter-down strike from Sunday to Tuesday.

The association called off the strike until Tuesday (July 30). Deputy Commissioner Hassan Waqar Cheema has invited the association’s office-bearers for negotiations and requested a charter of demands outlining their burning issues.

After the negotiations with the DC, the association held a meeting in which a majority vote approved the postponement of the strike.

The president of the Nanbai Association, Shafiq Qureshi told The Express Tribune that they had informed the DC and the ADCG with complete details that the price of 20kg flour sack had increased by Rs1,700, while the prices of red flour had reached Rs9,500 per bag and fine flour had crossed Rs10,000 per bag from July 1 to July 27, reaching the highest level in the country's history.

Similarly, the price of electricity was increasing every week and the price of gas was also getting out of control as the price of a commercial gas cylinder had reached up to Rs13,500, the DC was informed during the meeting. The DC was further informed that the rent of tandoors had also increased after the imposition of new withholding taxes.

“How can we buy expensive flour and sell cheap bread? The government and the district administration should either bring the prices of flour and refined flour back to the level of June 15 (when bread was made cheaper), provide all tandoor owners with subsidised cheap flour, reduce the prices of electricity, gas, and cylinder gas and abolish withholding tax, or increase the price of bread. We will negotiate open-heartedly on Tuesday,” Qureshi said.

“If these negotiations fail, there will be a regular increase in the prices of roti and naan, or an indefinite shutter-down strike will be called with a complete closing of tandoors. The next day, there will be a complete strike of tandoors in Islamabad, and on the third day, all six districts of the Rawalpindi Division will observe a tandoor strike,” he warned and made it clear that all 250,000 tandoors across Punjab would be completely closed at the last stage and in this situation, the demands would be approved through negotiations.

Qureshi further said that the DC had stopped the issuance of challans, registration of cases and arrests of tandoor owners and employees till Tuesday and in case of actions the strike would resume automatically.