KARACHI, Oct 8: The city government has finally fixed the wholesale and retail prices of milk at Rs23 and Rs25 per litre respectively, and has also re-fixed the retail sugar price at Rs25 per kg.

Previously, the price of loose milk could not be fixed owing to the failure of negotiations between the city government and dairy farmers. The dairy farmers, in the pre-Ramazan meetings, had flatly refused to reduce the prices.

In the case of sugar, the city government had fixed the price at Rs25 per kg ahead of Ramazan but it had later scrapped the commodity from the price list, anticipating a decline in the price and supposing that traders would not increase the same.

However, the situation had reversed and sugar rates started going up in the range of Rs27-29 per kg. On Saturday, sugar was restored in the official price list that had been issued before the advent of Ramazan. The wholesale price has now been fixed at Rs24.50 per kg.

“We have issued the notification of loose milk on the basis of market reports and surveys conducted by our officials after talks with dairy farmers failed,” EDO Enterprise and Investment Promotion Raeesuddin Paracha said.

He said that the city government would launch a crackdown on milk retailers and wholesalers and take legal action against them if they violated the official prices. In the last three days, some milk sellers were fined for selling milk at a rate above Rs28 per litre.

He claimed that the price control campaign was much more effective than the last year’s, especially at the end of third day of Ramazan as all 70 officials having magisterial powers had now been discharging their price control duty. Last year, there were only seven officials with magisterial powers doing the duty.

In a surprise move, a mukhtiarkar of Jamshed Town raided the shop of the Karachi Retail Grocers Group (KRGG) General Secretary, Farid Qureishi in Tariq Road area and took him to a jail. Some shopkeepers in the area pulled down shutters to in protest. Later, Farid Qureishi was released after he paid Rs8,000 as fine. A city government official said that Mr Qureishi might have been selling some commodities at higher rates. However, Mr Qureishi claimed that the city government official had imposed the fine without assigning him any reason.

Over the past three days, fruit sellers remained on the top of the daily progress report pertaining to the price control campaign. A majority of them, especially the pushcart vendors, usually avoided displaying the official price list.

On Saturday, a total 322 people were challaned and 168 fruit sellers among them were fined for selling fruits at higher rates. The others included 31 milk sellers, 50 vegetable sellers and 27 meat sellers.

The city government official said that an amount of Rs149,750 was recovered as fine from those challaned. Five people were sent behind the bars for failing to pay the fine, he added.