PESHAWAR, March 11: The NWFP government's reluctance to control the flour price in the absence of an official pricing mechanism and increasing reliance on Punjab has led to in the price to an all time high in the province.

The price of 20kg of flour increased by Rs40 during the last month. In the Rampura Gate market, price of 20kg bags of brown flour ranged between Rs255 and Rs260, whereas the price of fine flour ranged between Rs275 and Rs280 on Wednesday.

Sources said the absence of an official pricing mechanism and increasing reliance on the import of flour from Punjab had led to the increase in the price. "There is no official price of flour," an official said.

District Nazim Azam Afridi said the district government was not responsible for controlling the flour price. "It is the subject of the provincial food department," he told Dawn. He said he would take up the issue with Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani on Thursday.

A flour dealer said the government was not concerned about the rising price as it was focusing on ensuring the availability of flour in the market. "We are not trying to control the wheat flour price and we don't have a pricing mechanism to control the rates,"a provincial food department official said. He said any move in this regard could lead to problems for the government.

The government's reluctance to control the prices, according to the sources, had given a free hand to market forces, particularly the big dealers, to exploit the situation.

"The government has adopted the right approach by keeping a close eye on the rising price and concentrating on the availability of flour," a dealer said and added: "Any move to control the price would result in trouble for the provincial government."

A food directorate official said the prices would come down in a month, when wheat harvesting commenced. An official said the situation had aggravated because of the federal government's open market policy meant to facilitate farmers and reduce the expenditure on wheat subsidy.

"Had the province given subsidy on wheat as it did in the past, the annual bill under the head would have been about Rs4 billion," he said. He conceded that the province had reduced the subsidy on wheat to Rs1 billion for the current financial year in fulfilment of a condition under a World Bank loan agreement.

The NWFP, said the sources, was receiving 90 per cent of its flour from flour mills in Attock, Wazirabad, Multan, Islamabad, Dera Ghazi Khan and Hassan Abdal. Sources said the provincial government lacked the capacity to feed wheat to flour mills in the NWFP.

DAWN