LAHORE:During a drive to monitor prices of naan and roti, the district administration has imposed Rs750,000 fine and arrested 72 shopkeepers for not selling naan and roti on official rates.
Under the chairmanship of Commissioner M Ali Randhawa, a meeting was held on Tuesday regarding implementation of prices of roti and naan and procurement of wheat. The meeting was told in the briefing that fines upto Rs750,000 were imposed on 433 shops and tandoor owners for violating the government prices of roti and naan and 72 FIR’s were registered under which all the involved persons were arrested. The commissioner said in the last 24 hours, 3,514 inspections have been conducted for the implementation of official prices of roti and naan. The commissioner was told that the target of procuring wheat in Lahore was 8,042 metric tons had been set.
Meanwhile, Naanbais have expressed resentment over what they call undue insistence of administration on selling naan and roti at reduced price despite the fact that there is no significant cut in flour rates as yet. Hardly about 10 percent of wheat harvest has been completed and flow of grains from new crop is yet to be smoothened. In this situation, wheat flour bag price showed far less than double-digit downward trend. Similar is the case with price of fine flour price that has been reduced by just 12 percent. More importantly, supply of flour out of new crop is relatively low.
Despite such a fluid grain market, provincial government contrastingly wanted to decrease roti price by 20 percent and naan by one-third, which is impossible. Why government wants to provide cheap roti to masses at the cost of naanbais, said a tandoor owner on the condition of anonymity. He asked the government to give market a couple of weeks to reconcile with the supplies from new crop, saying flour price and tandoori roti rates would be settled accordingly maximum by the end of this month.
Meanwhile, Minister Food Punjab conducted raids to ensure provision of affordable roti-naan to people. As many as 14 people were arrested on the spot for selling expensive Roti and naan in Lahore and points were sealed.
