Chief Minister Punjab Sardar Usman Buzdar on Monday chaired a meeting to review rates and stock situation of sugar and flour in the province.

Secretary Food briefed about the reserves and rates of sugar and flour in the province.  The chief minister expressed the satisfaction that a 20kg flour bag is available in abundance at the fixed price of Rs 860.  Punjab is the only province where flour bags are provided to the people at a fixed rate, he added. 

He also expressed satisfaction over the arrangements made in this regard and the meeting decided to take every possible administrative step to further strict the monitoring for stopping the smuggling of flour from the province.  Usman Buzdar said the Punjab government is providing wheat to KP on a daily basis. 

It is also giving subsidies to the tune of billions of rupees to provide flour at fixed rates.  The subsidy is the right of the poor while the provision of subsidized flour to the elite is the cruelty with the poor, he added.  Directing to develop an effective mechanism for targeted flour subsidy, the chief minister asked the food department to provide a comprehensive plan in this regard. The Punjab government has released 6 lakh and 59 thousand ton wheat to the flour mills and it is providing more than 17 thousand ton wheat to flour mills every day, he said.

This helps in stabilizing flour prices in the market, he added.  Punjab has around 3.7 million ton wheat reserves.  The CM also directed strict monitoring for stabilizing the price of flour and the meeting decided to take every possible step to stabilize the rates of sugar.

Buzdar made it clear that an increase in the rates of sugar and flour will not be tolerated and directed the administrative officers to submit reports to him by reviewing prices after markets' visits. i will also review the field situation by going to different markets and no one can be allowed to exploit the people, he concluded.