Record of over 1m flour bags goes missing

LAHORE: The administration seems clueless about how to figure out misappropriation of massive quantities of free flour, amounting to millions of rupees.

The Food Directorate Punjab, revenue staff and the district administration have been blamed for grave negligence in this connection. It is learnt that there are discrepancies in distribution of free flour.

Reportedly, the record of over one million flour bags is missing. According to an official, the process of reconciliation of flour distributed among people and wheat issued by the Directorate of Food to flour mills has been completed in majority of the districts. The process of reconciliation is being supervised by the director Food.

The Food Directorate has been trying to downplay claims about gross misappropriation of flour, saying that the process of reconciliation of flour distribution data is being done. On the other hand, flour mill owners have put blame on administration and staff of the Food Directorate for missing flour bags.

The government staff had been deputed for distribution of flour at delivery points, said a mill owner, adding that all dispatches of free flour bags were delivered to the administration under strict monitoring. Amid this blame game, it seems authorities are clueless about unaccounted for flour bags worth crores of rupees distributed free of charge. About 100 truckload of flour bags have allegedly been missing in the Lahore Division. The missing flour is estimated to be worth around Rs 14 crore. The flour bags were released from the flour mills under the watch of officials as per recorded supplies, but they got disappeared in the supply chain.

As per the administration, the situation will become clear after investigations. Strict action will be taken if anyone is found involved in disappearance of free flour bags.