Provincial governments are likely to unveil their wheat release policies by next week (Monday), which would help bring stability in prices of the commodity and flour in local markets across the country, besides reducing the pressure on the private wheat market. “The intervention of the public sector will help in bringing stability in prices of wheat and flour by bridging the gap between demand and supply, besides discouraging the artificial hoarding and black marketing of the commodity in local markets,” said Food Security Commissioner Imtiaz Ali Gopang. Talking to APP on Friday, he said that the announcement of wheat release policy by the provincial governments would not only help reduce the pressure from the private sector stocks but would also discourage artificial shortage and hoarding of the commodity by certain elements who have been involved in creating a gap between demand and supply of the commodity and price fluctuations. So far, he said that only Punjab Province has declared its wheat release policy for the current season and announced the release prices of the commodity, besides fixing ex-mill and retail prices of flour and other products. The Punjab government has announced its wheat release scheme for the period under review and fixed wheat price at Rs1950 per 40kg, adding that other provinces have also finalized their policies according to their market mechanism, which would be deliberated in the meeting of the wheat review committee, he added. Meanwhile, the Punjab Government has fixed the ex-mill rate of 20kg flour bags at Rs1,975 and retail price of 20kg flour bags at Rs1,100, he said adding that it has also asked its authorities concerned to remain vigilant and take stern action against those involved in artificial price hike. Imtiaz Ali said that the wheat review committee is scheduled to meet on September 27 (Monday) and provincial governments including Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would communicate about their respective wheat release schemes to the committee by September 25, 2021, he added. Giving the details of current wheat stocks, the commissioner said that over 6.479 million tons of wheat available for domestic consumption as compared to the stocks of 5.344 million of the same period of last year, adding that Punjab has established 337 Sahulat Bazaars and so far, supplied 4,859,715 bags of wheat flour at the subsidized rate of Rs430 per 10Kg bag. The food security commissioner said that public stock is sufficient to cater for the civic requirement of 162 releasing days.