ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Standards Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) has submitted to the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that it kept on reminding the federal and provincial governments for the last three years for directing the concerned organisations (both in public and private sector) to stop the use of non-food grade packing for wheat flour, sugar and other edibles, but none of them paid heed to its repeated written requests.
The PSQCA document submitted to IHC, a copy made available to NEWSMAN, indicated that federal government notified in 2017 to stop the use of non-food grade packing for wheat flour, sugar and other edible for its hazardous impact on the lives of the consumers. Following the notification, which was mandatory for implementation, PSQCA took up the matter with the federal government and provincial government including Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB) on December 27, 2018 and then it sent various reminders, urging the federal government, provincial governments and others to take practical steps for implementation of its mandatory notification to stop health hazard non-good grade packing for wheat flour and other edibles. The PSQCA documents reveal that as of today its mandatory notification was unimplemented, resulting in unabated use of non-food grade packing of wheat flour and other edible which is a basic cause of a number of serious diseases like lung cancer and other infectious diseases in Pakistan. Other than health hazards, the use of no-food grade packing for wheat flour and other edibles is causing huge financial loss. The PSQCA report submitted to IHC showed that Pakistan is wasting wheat flour worth Rs 38 billion per year due to the use of substandard non-food grade packing. Unfortunately, Pakistan is the only country in the world today where non-food grade packing are being used without taking into account its financial and other losses and it’s the poor who is bearing major share of the loss. A number of studies conducted by different departments like PSQCA have confirmed that a 20 kg bag of wheat flour reduces its weight roughly by 0.5 kg to 0.8 kg due to pilferage/leakage from substandard bag. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s concerned departments both at federal and provincial levels like ministry of National Food Security and others do not bother to improve packing standards which will not cost them anything, but it can definitely save Rs 38 billion of this poor nation. Now as the matter has landed in IHC its believed that the count will fix up all of them who are responsible of not implementing PSQCA standards to ensure the use of food grade packing for wheat flour and other edibles.