PESHAWAR: Flour millers here on Monday threatened to close their mills across the province, if the provincial government was failed to release wheat to mills as per requirement and rate of Punjab within a week.
The decision was taken during an emergency general body meeting of Pakistan Flour Mills Association Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (PFMA-KP) chapter here, which held under chairmanship of the association's provincial chairman Muhammad Iqbal Khan.
Besides PFMA Group leader Muhammad Naeem Butt, flour mills owners from all divisions were present at the meeting. Large number of millers from Kohat, Karak, South Waziristan, Bannu, DI Khan, Charsadda, Mardan, Swabi, Malakand, Hazara, Manshera, Haripur and Abbottabad were also in attendance on the occasion.
Naeem Butt and Muhammad Iqbal Khan, while speaking at the general body meeting, said the provincial government's stubborn attitude would create flour crisis in the province.
The millers informed that the stocks of wheat at KP government warehouses had gone down to 150,000 tonnes, which is only enough to fulfil less than two weeks of the province's wheat consumption. They said KP's annual wheat requirements stood at around 4.6 million tonnes, while the provincial government currently had a stock of just 150,000 tonnes.
Naeem Butt warned that a serious flour crisis might erupt soon, if the provincial government did not take serious steps to resolve the issue at the earliest. He added that hundreds of workers belonging to flour mills in the province had lost their jobs while the prices of flour continued on an increasing trajectory due to negligence of the concerned food minister and his team.
Muhammad Iqbal demanded KP Chief Minister Mahmood Khan to issue orders to release wheat to KP mills as per requirement and rate of Punjab immediately to prevent from closure of flour mills industry in the province.
The PFMA meeting through a unanimous resolution and communiqué announced that the all flour mills would be shut down if the provincial government was failed to release wheat to mills as per requirement and rate of Punjab within a week time.
The meeting was addressed by flour millers and owners from all divisions of the KP.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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