LAHORE – Following a disagreement with the provincial food department over a wheat quota and mill searches, flour millers in Punjab have declared a strike beginning on Monday (tomorrow).
It is expected that the declaration may result in a flour scarcity in Lahore and other province-wide cities. According to sources, more than 100 mills’ wheat quotas have been suspended, and several mills in Lahore, Gujrat, and Multan have already stopped operating.
According to further sources, the provincial food secretary had directed that complaints be filed against 10 mills because he wished to have the mill owners detained.
Iftikhar Matto, the head of the Punjab Flour Mills Association (PFMA), claims that the millers want the food department to inspect the facilities in accordance with the established standard operating procedures (SOPs).
Zaman Watto, the secretary for food in Punjab, on the other hand, said that no legal action had been taken against the millers and that 80% of the mills had increased their wheat quota. He said that the majority of millers opposed the strike.
However, he said that information on people who were responsible for four shortages by encouraging others to go on strike was being collected and shared with the relevant authorities.
The food secretary had on Saturday instructed Deputy Commissioners of 36 districts to apply Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Ordinance beginning in Rawalpindi, and preparations had begun to arrest the owners of wheat mills in Punjab.
The District Food Controllers issued notifications to take action against the Flour Mills Association leadership at the request of the food secretary. A request for legal action against seven Flour Mills Association executives was also issued to the Deputy Commissioner by the District Food Controller of Rawalpindi.
A request for action has been made against Khawaja Imran, Tariq Sethi, Samad Qureshi, Qayyum Sethi, and Riyazullah Khan in the application.
According to the district food controller for Rawalpindi, the proprietors of the flour mills announced the strike during the association’s press conference and also incited others.
The DFC also said in the letter that the Flour Mills Association leaders should be prosecuted under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Ordinance, 1960, since the strike notification was an effort to create a false scarcity of flour in the market.