Ali Zaidi warns of flour crisis in Karachi next week

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Ali Zaidi on Friday warned of a flour crisis in Karachi due to mismanagement of the provincial authorities from next week, ARY NEWS reported.

The federal minister in his message on the micro-blogging website, Twitter, blamed the Sindh government for mismanaging the flour issue.

His message read: ” The way Sindh Govt has mismanaged the flour issue, I expect flour crises in Karachi starting next week. Wrong policies, corrupt practices & no control on flour mills.”

His message came in the backdrop of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet, that gave a go-ahead for the release of 650,000 tonnes of wheat from Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) stocks to the provincial governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Sindh and Balochistan on October 31.

However, the Sindh provincial authorities are yet to lift entire approved stock from the PASSCO stocks in order to overcome shortage in the market, raising fears of hike in prices and shortage.

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The ECC took up the wheat situation

in the country, particularly the rising trend in wheat prices, and approved a proposal by the Ministry of National Food Security and Research for release of 300,000 tonnes each to governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh and 50,000 tonnes to the government of Balochistan.

The ECC also approved an amount of Rs 2.745 billion to be paid as PASSCO incidental charges at the ratio of 50:50 to be equally shared by the federal and respective provincial governments.

The ECC was informed by the Ministry of National Food Security and Research that the PASSCO and Provincial Food Departments had reported their stocks at the level of 6.444 million tonnes as compared to 10.093 million tonnes of the corresponding period of the last year.

However, despite the fact that the total availability of wheat was estimated at the level of 28.256 million tonnes, including the leftover stock of 3.777 million tons as compared to the national requirement of 26.91 million tons of the country, the prices of wheat and flour still showed upward trend in the local market, the ECC was told.