Flour millers demand abolition of Ramadan packages

The flour millers on Saturday demanded the federal and provincial governments to do away with billions of rupees Ramadan packages. The PML-N led federal government has announced in the budget speech Rs 2 billion subsidy on daily-use essential items during the holy month of Ramadan. The Sindh and other provincial governments also have traditionally been announced same untargeted subsidies. “This (package) is a sheer wastage of national resources,” Syed Zahoor Ahmed Agha, central chairman of All Pakistan Flour Mills Association told a briefing at Karachi Press Club. Flanked by the provincial chiefs of APFMA, Agha said the billions of rupees subsidy during Ramadan has largely been subject to corruption by the food department officials, Utility Stores and other concerned across the country. “This package benefits everybody but the common man,” said the miller demanding that the governments, central and provincial, abolish the subsidy and adjust it in a way that it could lessen the burden of deserving people throughout the year. Calling for the appointment of honest food ministers in all four provinces, the millers said food departments had badly been plagued by corruption. “Receipts under fictitious heads, provision of sand-mixed and substandard wheat are matter of routine in the food departments now,” they claimed. Agha also demanded of Balochistan government to lift a ban under 144 on the transportation of wheat into the province from Punjab and Sindh. The embargo had left the flour mills in the province short of wheat, said Agha. “These bans are being misused as only those vehicles are allowed that bribe the officials concerned,” the flour miller alleged. If this situation continued the province would soon witness a drought as wheat price in the open market had already peaked to the highest level, warned Agha. The APFMA officials also demanded that the association’s respective provincial chief be taken onboard while the provincial governments make their wheat policy.