مجموعة ١١١/٢٨ "بلاد فارس. كرمانشاه - يوميّات سياسية." [و‎‎٧‎٨] (٧٥١/١٥٦)

FOOD 3UPPLY
?• The stock of official wheat for public baking
continued to decrease steadily during the month, and
by the end of February stood at zO tons, or less than
one day’s requirements. The collection during the
last week of the month totalled less than a quarter of
a ton, although there are scores of landlords still
owing hundreds of tons between them to the authorities
and still undergoing little or no pressure to deliver,
thanks to the bribes they distribute* There is a
certain amount of barley in hand, which is now going to
form 70/b or more of the bread-content, and a little
wheat-flour has been found by some miraculous means,
after everyone had said that the official reserve of
forty tons had* "disaprjeared"* For the next few weeks
I Kermanshah is going to live more precariously than ever,
since the weather has recently been so bad that no grain
can be transported from the villages even when it has
been collected there* Valuable weeks and months of
fine weather were completely wasted, and even now little
real effort is being made to organise animal transport
in view of the shortage of lorries. Owners of donkeys
and minor officials of the Supply department combine to
force up the cost of moving grain to prohibitive levels.
This suits the big landowners, who wish to see acute
shortage and famine conditions in the town and countryside
in order to keep up the blac v market price of wheat; now
7,000 rials or over £54 per ton, as against the official
price of 3,500 rials. It also suits the holders of
alternative foodstuffs such as ghee, rice, beans, peas,
etc. of which literally thousands of tons are known to
be hoarded in Kermanshsh itself, while prices remain at
fantastic levels.
Rationing makes very slow progress, and is
attended by the usual scandals. Bribes have to be paid
to get a coupon for tea or sugar, and many people are
said to have obtained two or three coupons by paying.
In the bazaar there is an active daily "black bourse"
in coupons. Five committees are now working on a
scheme for bread-rationing, and it is said that the
well-to-do, the merchants and those known to have private
wheat-stocks will not receive bread-coupons; but nobody
of course believes this. After about two months without
proper issues of tea and sugar, a meagre ration has
lately been given out. There are perpetual jostling
throngs around the Government cloth-shops. The ordinary
people, including the very poor and the labouring classes,
now cannot afford anything like proper supplies of rice,
ghee, tea or sugar; vegetables are of course at present
scarce, and meat has recently been practically unobtainable
in the town; only bread remains, and this is'often almost
uneatable, while it looks like shortly becoming
unobtainable