ISLAMABAD: The government inaction and lack of interest is causing the country Rs 34 billion every year despite a notification issued by the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQC) on May 19, 2017.
The PSQC, which falls under the Ministry of Science and Technology, issued a notification, which states that to ensure food security by minimising dusting of wheat flour, it is mandatory to use one-side laminated and one-side woven polypropylene sacks to reduce the dusting to a minimum of 0.05%.
However, it has been witnessed that with the 3% wastage around 459 thousand tonnes of wheat flour amounting to Rs 21 billion is wasted. In most cases, the wastage is around 5% constituting loss of 765 thousand tonnes of wheat flour amounting to Rs 34.4 billion.
By reducing the level to 0.05, the wastage will be around Rs 0.34 million a year.
Former chairman Iskander Khan said that it took him four years of extensive research and knocking on almost every door to make one-side laminated bags mandatory to save wastage of wheat flour. “In March 2014, I made a presentation to the then minister of Food Security Sikandar Bosan, requesting to ban non-food grade polypropylene bags and notify mandatory use of one-side laminated bags to save wheat flour with a nominal increase in cost. Non-food grade polypropylene sacks are coarse and porous because of its incorporation of recycled polypropylene waste and that’s the reason it fails to contain all flour and result in wastage,” he added.
“One-sided lamination is used because the flour by mills uses a percentage of water that needs to evaporate,” he said.
“I have been telling the people at the helm of the affairs that Pakistan is a poor country and for people like you and I it does not make much of a difference if we have to pay extra Rs 50 for the lost wheat flour, but for a poor man who earns nominal wages running a sizable family, it’s a huge loss. It means out of 20 kg sack, at least 10 rotis (bread) are lost because of flour dusting,” he said.
“Well to be honest, I am not very hopeful [about the implementation of the notification] as you see that six months have already passed and no action taken by the government despite by my repeated reminders after the issuance of statutory notifications. Now my last hope is the Supreme Court of Pakistan. I request the Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar to please take notice of the issue and help the poor people of this country,” he said.
To a question about the objection raised by flour millers that such a step would increase the burden on people as the one side laminated food grade bags cost more than the ones already in use, Iskander Khan said: “Yes, it costs Rs 3 more than the current low quality recycled sacks, but it will save around Rs 50. It should also be noted that the flour millers already charge very high prices for the low quality bags which are included in the price of wheat flour,” he said.
Published in Daily Times, December 19th 2017.