PM Flour Programme: A Landmark Initiative To Facilitate Millions Of Poor In Ramzan

PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Mar, 2023 ) :The last year's devastating floods had adversely affected agriculture and livestock sectors in the country including Khyber Pakthunkhwa, which resulted in a significant increase in prices of flour, vegetables and dairy products during Ramzan.

Incurring USD 40 billion losses to the Government kitty including $3.7 billion to the agriculture, food, livestock and fishery sectors of Pakistan, the August 2022 moon floods and global economic recessions in the wake of the Russian-Ukraine war besides other factors, have largely contributed to the record 31.1 per cent hike in inflation recorded in February last since 1974 by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

The destruction to seasonal agriculture crops, fruits and vegetables by the flash floods have increased prices in Peshawar where 20 kg flour bag was available at Rs2800-3000 and 10kg bag at Rs1400-1600 in the open market, which was beyond the purchasing power of the poor, marginalized and low-income groups.

In Peshawar, one-kilogram of potato was being sold at Rs100, onion at Rs 150 per kg, tomatoes at Rs 140 per kg, and garlic at Rs500 per kg. Similarly, one-kilogram of Apple was available at Rs350-400 per kg, guava at Rs200 per kg, strawberry at Rs400 per kg, banana at Rs 200 per dozen and watermelon at Rs 200 per kg besides lemon at Rs500 per kg during Ramzan. The price of chicken has also soared to Rs 580 per kg, meat at Rs 850 per kg and mutton at Rs 1600 per kg besides Rs 220 each per litre of milk and yogurt per kilogram respectively.

Zilakat Malik, former Chairman of, Economics Department, University of Peshawar told APP on Monday that besides international and regional geopolitical factors including the global economic recession and Russian-Ukrain war, the prevailing high inflation and price hike in Pakistan was also caused by the last year's monsoon flood that would likely to push additional 1.9 million poor households below the poverty line.

He said the lower middle-income poverty rate was about USD 3.2 per day and the upper middle-income poverty rate was USD 5.5 per day in the country where the national poverty ratio was expected to increase by 2.4 to four per cent, thus around 26 per cent of our population may face balanced problems if solid measures were not taken on a priority basis.

To provide speedy relief to price-hike-stricken people, Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has announced free-of-charge flour (Atta) to facilitate millions of poor people of the country including Khyber Pakthunkhwa. The free distribution of flour started from the 25th Shaban and would continue till the 25th Ramzan in the country including Khyber Pakthunkhwa. In Khyber Pakthunkhwa, the provincial government has announced an Rs19.77 billion flour package to facilitate over 5.750 million families in the province.

A KP Food Department spokesman told APP that 7600 centres were established in the province for the distribution of free 'Atta' under the BISP program to people. As many as 2,000 flour distribution points were also set up in the far-flung and remote areas of the province where approximately, 17.2 million kilogram atta would be distributed among poor families.

Like KP, free distribution of flour bags among millions of deserving families was smoothly continued in Punjab province. The 10KG bags were being distributed through 8500 utility stores besides distribution points were underway through BISP in Punjab where approximately 15.8 million poor families would be directly benefited.

"Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has won the hearts and minds of Pakistanis for launching free of charge atta to facilitate millions of poor households, which eased their financial burden during Ramzan," said Riazul Haq, a private school teacher of Nowshera district while talking to APP.

The PM's flour package has not only brought stability to the flour prices in open markets in Khyber Pakthunkhwa including Nowshera and Peshawar but also helped the poor segment of the society to utilize the saved amount for education and marriages of their children, he added.

Meanwhile, caretaker Chief Minister Muhammad Azam khan while taking notice of some unpleasant incidents that took place during the distribution of free wheat flour in some parts of Khyber Pakthunkhwa, directed the Chief Secretary to ensure its free distribution in an organized manner.

On compliance of CM orders, the chief secretary has assigned monitoring tasks to the administrative secretaries and deputy commissioners to ensure the distribution of free-of-cost flour in the province. The officials were directed to submit reports about free atta's distribution to the caretaker chief minister on a regular basis.

Ikhtair Wali Khan, PML-N KP spokesman told APP that Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has started visiting different cities to personally monitor the free distribution of flour among poor people during Ramzan.

He said the prime minister has recently visited Sargodha, Bahawalpur and Multan districts where he examined free-of-charge atta distribution among people and ordered officials to extend maximum assistance to the elderly citizens, women and differently-abled people at the centers.

Wali said despite the difficult economic situation, the Prime Minister has launched the free atta program to provide relief to price hike-stricken poor people and was being appreciated at all levels.

He said Imran Niazi has left millions of flood victims of Khyber Pakthunkhwa and Punjab provinces at times when they badly needed his governments' support, adding had the PTI government continued for a few more weeks the country would have been bankrupted today.

Ikhtair Wali claimed that PTI has put the country under huge loans' burdens and brought record increases to the country's import bill in its last years besides introducing an immensity scheme to launder the black money. He said that Imran Niazi has neither fulfill promises of construction of five million houses nor provided jobs to 10 million people besides abolishing PTI's owned created Ehtasab Commission at Peshawar that negated his anti corruption slogans.

Ikhtair Wali claimed that PTI was losing footing in Khyber Pakthunkhwa due to its government's poor 10 years performance and would face people's wrath in upcoming general elections.