ISLAMABAD: To increase production of flour and bring down its price, the federal government on Thursday decided to set the grinding ratio of wheat by 80:20, to be ensured by the provincial governments.
The decision was taken during a high level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The Prime Minister tasked the Finance Minister to review the existing business model of procurement of wheat and suggest ways to cut down administrative costs being incurred during procurement, transmission and storage process of wheat.
The meeting was attended among others by federal and provincial ministers and relevant federal and provincial secretaries.
The provincial Chief Secretaries also attended the meeting via video link.
The Prime Minister was informed by Senior Provincial Minister for Food Punjab that as per his directions, the Punjab government was releasing wheat to flour mills since 07 July 2020.
It was informed that so far 3.6 MT wheat has been released with a provision of Rs50 billion as subsidy.
The meeting was informed that Punjab was incurring a cost of Rs510 per 40kg of wheat in lieu of various administrative charges including procurement, transmission and storage.
This additional burden was being absorbed by the provincial government and was not being passed on to the consumers.
