PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter on Sunday announced to close all flour mills in the province indefinitely from Monday (tomorrow) in protest against lack of proper wheat supply to mills for the last several months.
The association said it had informed the KP government repeatedly about the looming flour crises, but authorities didn’t take the issue seriously and kept saying that enough grain is available in the province
But now the supply to the KP mills has been reduced to just 3,000 tonnes, which isn’t enough to cater the province’s requirement of at least 12,000 tonnes every day, PFMA further says.
According to PFMA, the provincial government had earlier supplied 5,000 tonnes to mills, while 5,000 tonnes wheat was provided by the Punjab government that was enough to fulfil the market demand. As Punjab has completely stopped the supply, the KP’s food department has too reduced the supply of grain to mills to just 3,000 tonnes.
PFMA KP Chairman Haji Iqbal Khan told Pakistan Today that due to lack of interest of the provincial food department and the KP government to raise the issue with the federal and Punjab governments, people of the province are going to face another flour crisis, while the millers are already facing huge losses.
“KP is now facing 9,000 tonnes of wheat shortage daily,” he said, adding the province is dependent on Punjab for its wheat requirements as despite harvest season the province hasn’t enough wheat production to fulfil that demand.
Khan further said Punjab has imposed unconstitutional ban on supply of wheat to KP due to which supply of wheat to 180 flour mills in province has been cut off.
“It is the government’s job to negotiate the issue with federal and Punjab governments, but due to the KP government’s lack of seriousness, today flour mills across the province have to shut operation due to lack of wheat supply,” Khan deplored.
The association appealed to Prime Minister Imran Khan and KP Chief Minister Mahmood Khan to take up the matter with the Punjab government to immediately lift the ban on wheat supply to the province.
KP Food Minister Qalandar Lodhi and the Secretary Food weren’t available for comments.
