The Punjab Food Department is restricting the wheat quotas of flour mills that plan to participate in the Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA)’s strike starting Monday, and have failed to supply flour at a reduced price.
The department has directed its deputy directors to prepare a list of the protesting mills and is developing a program to lower their quota permanently.
Although no criminal charges have been filed against the mill owners, information on the responsible parties is being gathered. The majority of mills do not intend to participate in the strike, with 80% obtaining their wheat allotment.
The province’s flour mills have a regular capacity of more than 200,000 metric tonnes a day, and the Food Department supplies 26,000 metric tons of subsidized wheat on a daily basis.
The government can only acquire flour from 25 percent of the mills.
Muhammad Zaman Wattoo, Secretary of the Food Department, has stressed that action against mills for wheat quota misappropriation would continue, and subsidized wheat will not be sold unlawfully.
The dominant faction of the Punjab Flour Mills Association (PFMA) indicated last week that they will not take wheat from government inventories beginning Monday, resulting in a stop in flour supplies from Tuesday.
Yet, PFMA Punjab Chairman Iftikhar Matto has detached the association from mills that were abusing the official quota and indicated that their membership in the PFMA will be terminated.
