25 April 2004	Sunday	04 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

LAHORE, April 24: The City District Government has miserably failed to ensure availability of mutton and beef at fixed price despite arrests of butchers and registration of cases against them.

It has been arresting or booking meat sellers instead of bringing down the wholesale price by preventing exporters from purchasing animals from the local market.

Not only mutton continues to sell above Rs200 per kg instead of fixed retail price of Rs150 per kg and beef for Rs100 per kg instead of Rs60 per kg despite the arrest of 138 butchers and lodging of more than 280 FIRs during the ongoing price control campaign. They were released on bail and nothing is known about the fate of the FIRs.

The CDG squads arrested 34 butchers and lodged 30 FIRs for selling meat at high price during the checking of prices of mutton and beef at 98 spots in different parts of the city on Saturday alone which included Sanda, Moghalpura, Gulberg, Laiquatabad, Shafiqabad, Samanabad and Allama Iqbal Town areas. They were later handed over to police.

Prominent dealers attributed the increase in mutton prices to the purchase of animals by the exporters from the local market instead of establishing farms for the purpose in accordance with their terms of licensing during a press conference at the Allama Iqbal Town office during Ramazan. They said prices of animals had increased in the market because the exporters were ready to pay much more than the local sellers because mutton was being exported.

They were of the view that a ban on meat export was the only way to bring down its price because the exporters were not ready to raise their own animals.

They claimed that meat prices had remained stable during the 1990s when the import was banned. The prices started going up after the lifting of ban on export.