Price of flour spiked as millers suspended supply in Mansehra

MANSEHRA: The price of wheat flour on Sunday increased to Rs400 per 20kg bag as the local millers suspended supply of the commodity to wholesalers.

“The price of both fine and double super wheat flour qualities surged to an Rs400 per 20kg bag as millers suspend supply to wholesalers locally,” Fayyaz Ahmad, the owner of a general store, told reporters.

He said that the traders were astonished to notice that local millers suspended flour supply in markets despite the fact that it was wheat harvesting season in the Hazara Division.“Now we have been selling flour bags coming into local markets through smuggling from Punjab and wholesalers charge an extra amount paid on checkposts as bribes,” he added.

He said that before the start of the current crisis a 20 kg bag of fine quality wheat flour was sold at Rs2950. And now its price has increased to Rs3350 and a double supper quality bag, which was available at Rs2850, was now being sold at Rs3250.

Another trader said that there remained stability in the price of wheat flour during Ramazan as the government had launched the Free Flour distribution scheme.The Punjab government had put in place a ban on its transportation to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa despite a bumper wheat crop, which deteriorated the already fragile situation in the province.

Meanwhile, the officials of the district administration also paid surprise visits to local markets to check the hoarding of wheat flour. “The district administration is vigilant and would never allow anybody to hoard or create artificial shortage of wheat flour,” said an official.