27 October 2004	Wednesday	12 Ramazan 1425

PESHAWAR, Oct 26: The NWFP government's efforts to control prices of essential items during Ramazan achieved little success as wholesalers and shopkeepers did not pay much heed to special teams constituted to keep prices under control , according to market and official sources.

District governments in the NWFP have constituted special teams to monitor quality and ensure availability of essential commodities of daily use, particularly edibles during Ramazan.

The teams comprise one representative each from a police, food department, district coordination officer and town committees of the district concerned.

"The teams constituted by district coordination officers would check quality and availability of edibles and monitor their prices during Ramazan," said an official of the provincial government.

Special teams constituted in all 24 districts of the province checked some 7500 shops, between Oct 16 and 21, to examine quality of various items of daily use being sold in their districts concerned.

Peshawar-based officials of the provincial food directorate said that out of the total 7500 shops visited during the checking drive, the teams fined some 730 shopkeepers, in different parts of the province, for over-pricing.

All of them were charge-sheeted under different laws meant to check hoarding and profiteering.

Apart from checking prices of essential items, officials said, the teams also sent samples of 62 items of various nature for laboratory tests during the same period in different parts of the province.

"All samples were later found to be of good standard," claimed the official.

Market sources in Peshawar, however, said that the district governments' efforts had not made much difference as profiteering and sale of sub-standard items, particularly, in rural parts of the province was continuing as usual.

They said that meat-sellers were selling beef at a price much higher than its officially fixed rate. While the official rate of beef happens to be Rs70 per kilogramme, the same is being sold at a price between Rs80 to Rs95 per kilogramme.

Even in super markets run by military in different parts of the cantonment in Peshawar beef is being sold at Rs80 per kilogramme whereas, it is being sold between Rs100 and Rs120 in super markets being run by the private sector in posh areas of the provincial capital.

Apart from meat, flour is also being sold at a price much higher than the officially-fixed rate.

Though the provincial government has made special arrangements to sell flour bags of 20 kilogramme at Rs207 per bag in all districts of the province on every Sunday during Ramazan, flour bags of the same weight are being sold at around Rs260 per bag in open markets across the province.

The provincial minister for food, excise and taxation Fazal-i- Rabbani has also conducted raids in the provincial capital and its suburbs, since the start of Ramazan, to personally check prices, quality and availability of essential items in local markets.