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Law ministry opposes move to ban setting up of new flour mills

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Law Ministry has dismissed a proposal to ban establishment of new flour mills, saying such a move will be illegal and unconstitutional.

Official sources told Fortuna on Friday the Law Ministry has opposed government's proposed move to put a ban on the establishment of new flour mills in the country and has informed the government that this act will not only be illegal but also unconstitutional.

These sources said the Federal Law Ministry had proposed to the government to abolish subsidy on procurement of wheat instead of banning new mills. The new policy will take away part of the flour milling industry's profitability and investors will be discouraged from putting up new flour milling units. The proposal has been in the offing for as long as six months and a summary in this regard has been moving in all ministries concerned for over four months now.

It had been proposed that the Federal Government should put the flour milling industry on the negative list as over capacity of mills was causing serious wheat crises in the country for the last couple of years.

Sources said the government had come to the conclusion that ban on establishment of new flour mills had become necessary in the wake of mushroom growth of mills in the country against limited availability of wheat stocks.

Sources said another reason for ban on the mills is that the government believes that majority of the flour mills are involved in flour smuggling to Afghanistan where wheat flour gets lucrative prices.

Sources said the Ministry of Industries and Production had already sent a summary to the Economic Coordination Committee of the Federal Cabinet to ban establishment of new flour mills.

Sources said the issue of illegality of the proposed ban came up in a meeting of the Federal Secretary for Industries and Production with his provincial counterparts, officials of the food department, law and justice and representatives of flour mills association. It was during this meeting that the Law Secretary pointed out that the federal government could not ban new flour mills or include them in the negative list of industries as it would be a violation of article 18 of the constitution.

The Law Ministry said that Article 151 of the Constitution, the federal government could not impose any restriction on inter provincial trade except through the Parliament.

Sources said the Law Secretary has advised the government to better abolish wheat subsidy on wheat to end this problem of setting up new mills. Fortuna