Karachi: The Flour Mills Association (Isosceles Association) announced yesterday that it will close all mills for an indefinite period of time, stating that the Food Department has deceived them.
In this regard, Chairman of the Flour Mills Association, Chaudhry Aamir, said in a press conference that from yesterday evening at 7 pm, the flour mills will be forced to completely shut down and go on strike because the Food Department has deceived us.
He said that due to the ban on wheat coming from interior Sindh to Karachi, the mill had gone on strike, on which the provincial food minister had promised 5 million bags of wheat, which were sufficient for the Karachi mill for two months. Upon verification by the minister, the Flour Mill had ended the strike.
Chaudhry Aamir explained that by April 30, the mills were supposed to receive 9 lakh bags of wheat and the remaining 11 lakh bags of wheat were supposed to be received by May 10. However, the Food Department deceived us and till now we have only received 4 lakh bags of wheat.
The Chairman of the Flour Mills Association said that Pasco has refused to give the Sindh government any more wheat, which means that we will only receive 5 lakh bags out of 20 lakh bags. The Food Department of Sindh has put up check posts at 13 points in Sindh and wheat trailers are being charged Rs. 300,000 for wheat from Dhae. The government is strongly urged to end these check posts immediately.
Aamir Abdullah said that due to all these circumstances, 70% of Karachi’s flour mills have closed down and more flour mills are expected to close down, causing a severe crisis of flour in the city.
