LAHORE, March 1: Flour situation in Punjab has started easing with the arrival and distribution of imported wheat but price still seems to defying new market reality and continues to be high.

According to food department officials, Punjab has already received over 155,000 ton wheat and third ship carrying 50,000 ton was being unloaded at Karachi. Of the latest arrival, around 15,000 ton wheat has been dispatched to Punjab.

The province was supposed to get a total of 500,000 ton during March. All except one ship are on schedule. One ship is late by a week or so and will arrive in the first week of April.

Basing calculations on new stock situation, the department on Tuesday increased quota for mills by around 10 per cent; from 47 bags per rolling body to 52 bags. The total impact of quota will be around 2,000 ton a day -- from around 18,200 ton to 20,500 ton.

This situation, they said, would further ease by mid-March when fresh crop from Sindh and adjoining areas of Punjab start arriving. Talking about price factor, an official of the Pakistan Flour Mills Association said that the impact of fresh arrival had still not reached the proportion where it could bring price down. But it would certainly happen in days to come and massive injection of new wheat takes hold of the market.

The department will prefer releasing all imported wheat within days after arrival. It will save the department from fumigation, storage problems and huge money. The high flour price is because of absence of mechanism in district government setup to check prices, said a market watcher from the city.

He said the country had never a crisis situation as far as wheat was concerned, but the price continued rising because no one checked the trend. He said district governments wanted magistracy powers to check flour price which the Punjab government was not ready to grant. "If the government does not check this trend, the price may go down marginally and still keep troubling people," he said.

Meanwhile, the Sindh government had more than 30,000 tons of share in last two ships but it has dispatched all its share to Punjab to clear its due from last year, said another food department official.

"These factors, logically speaking, must help price slide. If they do not, the government must act seriously to find out factors keeping price high and try to remove them," he said. The government is aware of social cost of flour price and will soon control any rise, he hoped.