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Flour crisis looms large amid strike by millers
- 70 units stop grinding
KARACHI, April 27:
Leaders of the Pakistan Flour Mills Association
claimed that wheat grinding operation was
suspended by 70 mills in the city on Monday in
response to its strike call. However, some flour
millers and traders said that at least 18 units
did not observe the strike.
Sheikh Akhtar, a former leader of the
Association's Sindh chapter, said that a meeting
of the millers was held a meeting in the office of
the association on Monday afternoon and decided to
continue the strike on Tuesday.
The strike call has been given in protest against
the Sindh Food Department's move to suspend
licence of eight flour mills on the charge of
over-charging. The millers are also angry at the
Sindh government which, they say, was not allowing
them to purchase wheat directly from farmers in
the interior of the province. They accuse the
government of creating hurdles in transporting
wheat to Karachi.
Two of the non-striking millers said that they
neither closed down their business on Monday and
not would they do so on Tuesday. They claimed that
they and 16 other mills would not be joining the
strike.
The association leaders alleged that Food
Department officials were harassing its members,
and cited the example of Lyallpur Flour Mills
where certain officials had a tiff with the mill's
employees. Police from Azizabad police station had
to be called to maintain peace.
Sindh Food Department officials said that they had
held a meeting on Friday with millers of Karachi
and decided to allow them wheat purchase and
transportation from the interior on permits,
provided the mills agreed on the monitoring of the
process.
Wholesale prices of wheat in Jodia Bazaar on
Monday remained unchanged at Rs950 for an 80-kg
bag which means that per kilogram price of wheat
was Rs11.87 in wholesale market.
Mohammad Shakeel, Secretary of the Karachi
Wholesalers Group, said that not many transactions
of wheat trade were witnessed in the market.
"April is normally a dull month for wheat
trading," he observed, and pointed out that
usually there was not much demand for wheat in
retail markets during second half of any month.
Anees Majeed, Chairman of the Karachi Wholesalers
Group, warned that if millers' strike continued
for the next few days, there could be a crisis of
flour in the city.
"We have reports, though not confirmed as yet,
that a few traders are negotiating wheat export
orders... this is creating confusion in the
market," he said, and added that a harvest of 20
million tonnes surplus was enough for the
country's requirement provided government could
plug smuggling through porous borders with
Afghanistan.
But there is still a lot of confusion on wheat
trade. There has been no word on the meeting, held
on Monday in Islamabad, of the high-level Wheat
Disposal Committee. Since no official announcement
was made till late Monday, it is believed that the
meeting did not take any decision about the
restriction on wheat movement in Punjab and Sindh.
Leaders of the flour association quoted an
official as saying that a top government official
was about to intervene in the wheat affairs and
that a meeting at highest level might be called
later this week.
The DAWN
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Pakissan.com; Advisory Point
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