Punjab food dept releases 26,000MT to mills,

 Peshawar High Court takes suo motu against hike in flour prices .

300,000 tonnes of Russian wheat reaches Karachi port,

Lahore(Abdulrehman) – The shortage of flour in an agricultural country like Pakistan has made the lives of people miserable. People face agony as flour has become incredibly hard to be found across country with masses facing unexplainable misery from Sindh to Peshawar.

The price of wheat had been reduced by Rs10 per one kilogram in Karachi however, no reduction in the price of wheat could be seen with its rate maintained at Rs160 one per Kg

Meanwhile in Punjab, the private wheat market got hit when the government increased the quota for wheat and ultimately prices were reduced.

Market sources reveal that wheat was reduced by Rs1200 per 40Kg due to which the price of 40kg wheat changed to Rs4200, which before was Rs5400, and also the rate of wholemeal flour would probably be reduced by Rs15 to 20 per Kg.Karachi Wholesalers Grocers Association Chairman Abdul Rauf Ibrahim said that price of wheat in open market fell from Rs130 per kg to Rs100 per kg during the last 48 hours.He claimed that there has been a chaos after government announced a crackdown on wheat hoarders, and they left the ground. This, he said, prompted the fall in price.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Food department had also increased the daily wheat quota to 6,500 metric tons, which previously was 5,000 metric tons. Provincial food minister Atif Khan said the government had been giving relief to lessen the flour’s rates while claiming the government had enough stock of wheat.

On the other hand, the wheat crisis in Balochistan has been aggravating with every passing day with people protesting and blocking the road going to chief minister secretariat. The protestors said they did not need any charity but only cheap flour because they were dying from hunger and the government was not doing enough to compensate for the needs of common people.

Meanwhile,The Punjab Food Department (PFD) on Tuesday released 26,000 metric tons of wheat to 970 flour mills across the province.

According to official data, around 5,995 metric tons of wheat quota has been released to the Rawalpindi division, 1,919MT to Gujranwala division and 1,336MT of wheat quota has been released to the Gujarat division, 7,302MT to the Lahore division, 2,641MT to the Faisalabad division, 1,072MT to the Sargodha division, and 1,811MT has been released to the Multan division.

Apart from this, the department has released 756MT quota to the Sahiwal division, 1,078MT to the Dera Ghazi Khan division and 2,090MT to the Bahawalpur division.

Earlier,The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday summoned the federal and provincial food authorities to appear before the court on Jan 11 after it took suo motu notice over the increase in flour prices,

The Chief Justice of Peshawar High Court Qaiser Rashid Khan observed that the people are finding it hard to get the flour.  “On the other hand, the government has failed completely to provide any relief to people.”

The court said the government is running after dollars but not giving anything to the people.

The Chief Justice Peshawar High Court directed the federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) food secretaries, provincial director for food, and Peshawar Deputy Commissioner to appear before the court personally and apprised the court shortage and hike in flour prices in KP.

Two ships carrying more than 300,000 tons of Russian wheat arrived in Karachi on Monday. The Ministry of National Food Security & Research announced that Pakistan will import 750,000 tons of wheat from Russia. The remaining 400,000 tons are expected to arrive at the Gwadar Port by the end of March.