SWABI: The price of maize flour has doubled during last few weeks and it can go further up in coming days, according to the grain grinding machine owners.

Talking to this scribe here on Sunday, the machine owners and consumers said that the price of maize flour had surged to Rs3,000 per 50kg from Rs1,500 during last four weeks.

A grain trader said the maize flour was used in kebab and various other food items and for producing oil.

Wajid Khan, a grinding machine owner in Shahmansoor area, said that floods had destroyed maize crop over vast area of the district and its production in the current year was expected to be about 60 per cent less than the previous year.

Mir Azam, a resident of Maneri village, said that there was no mechanism to control commodity prices as traders had been charging the peopleaccording to their will without any check by the district administration and food department.

TEHSIL STATUS: Gadoon mountainous region is likely to become the fifth tehsil of Swabi district as Chief Minister Mahmood Khanis expected to announce the provincial government’s decision in this regard on Monday (today) in a ceremony arranged for inauguration of the newly-constructed building of Kotha Campus of the Women University Swabi.

Gadoon region is currently part of the Topi tehsil. Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf district president Sohail Khan Yousafzai told this correspondent that all arrangements for the chief minister’s visit had been completed.

He said that the chief minister would announce elevation of Gadoon to tehsil status on Monday (today). He said that the people of Gadoon region had also been invited to participate in the gathering at Kotha.

The chief minister would also lay the foundation stone of the building of the Gajju Khan Medical College, Swabi.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2022