close
Thursday March 28, 2024

Punjab Ramazan Package:

May 06, 2018

Part of subsidised wheat flour worth billions may not reach consumers

By Munawar Hasan

LAHORE: Alarm bells have been raised that a big part of the billions of rupees worth of subsidised wheat flour is unlikely to reach consumers in Punjab during Ramazan because of alleged misappropriations at the hands of food officials and flourmill owners, The News has learnt.

The Punjab government is increasing the amount of subsidy on wheat flower for Ramazan assistance scheme by around Rs6 billion and a new summary seeking provincial food department’s approval has been sent to chief minister’s office.

A whistleblower from Layyah city, in an application to the authorities, said consumers might not be able to lay hands on a sizeable portion of subsidised wheat flour due to aforementioned hurdles.

“Owing to lack of transparency and absence of monitoring mechanism to check the grinding of wheat by flour mills and its subsequent supply under the Ramazan package, this initiative may not make a real difference for consumers,” the whistleblower said in the application written to National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), chief minister secretariat, etc.

As per proposed package, the volume of subsidised wheat is to be increased to 0.8 million tons from 0.5 million tons, by raising the subsidy to approximately Rs17 billion from earlier sanctioned outlay of Rs11 billion.

The implementation on Ramazan package is expected to start from May 10.

There are rampant complaints about the subsidised wheat being issued even to closed flourmills’ owners, who sell it in the open market and pocket big money with the connivance of food department staff.

Some circles blamed that one-third or almost half of the subsidy was embezzled every year by officials, including deputy directors of food department, district food controllers, and flourmill owners.

The worst affected districts from alleged corruption last year were Lahore, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Multan, DG Khan, Bahwalpur, RY Khan, and Faisalabad.

The whistleblower also claimed that Chief Minister’s Inspection Team’s (CMIT), raids in Lahore district last year were no consequence.

“This misappropriation can easily be checked by comparing electricity bills of the mills grinding the wheat with the ones not doing it,” the complainant said.

The whistleblower also accused the concerned officials of being too generous in liberalising wheat quota and not bothering to verify grinding of the wheat.

“In return officials mint Rs300/bag on issuing each bag of 100kg wheat to flour mills,” the whistleblower alleged.

Another issue, he said in his application, was to make the whole process transparent by sharing data of released amount and quantity of flour through the concerned department’s website.

“This step will preempt any corrupt practices,” the complainant said in the application.

As per previous arrangements, provincial food department allowed flourmills to simultaneously grind flour for open market as well as under the Ramazan Package.

However, in ensuing years, flour mill owners were asked to choose either flour supply chain for open market or Ramazan Package.

Last year, this option was available to the flour mill owners.

A source said in mid of last Ramazan, provincial food

department abruptly discontinued flour supply to

open market on the pretext that grinding of Ramazan Package quota was in less quantity.

“They even forced the millers to withdraw flour from the open market. This new practice even encourages more corruption,” the source added.

Talking about another issue relating to availability of subsidised wheat, the source said, if someone wanted to distribute food items on the eve of Ramazan to needy

person, inclusion of flour becomes difficult in the

items for distribution as these mills were not allowed to

sell wheat flour directly

outside the Ramazan Package.

When contacted, both provincial secretary food and director food did not comment on the allegations of misappropriation of billions of rupees on account of subsidy on wheat flour under Ramazan Package. Moreover, the minister for food also did not respond to the messages sent to him.