KARACHI, July 18: The present upsurge in the prices of vegetables has once again brought the issue to the main focus that the city needs more Sabzi Mandis and that too on an urgent basis.
The retail vegetable traders attribute the present hike in rates of vegetables to the escalating transport charges, as the lone vegetable wholesale market of the city, the new Sabzi Mandi, is situated on Superhighway, some 40km from the downtown areas.
This biggest wholesale vegetable and fruit market of the country may be easy accessible to the residents of the nearby localities like Gadap, Sohrab Goth or FB Area, but it is too far for those living in areas like Orangi, Keamari, Maripur, Defence, Landhi, Baldia or Korangi.
In the same way, upcountry growers using the Superhighway route find this market suitable for selling their produce, but those using routes of the National Highway and the RCD Road had to pay extra transportation charges to bring their produce to the market in question.
Sources say that being the sole wholesale vegetable market gives a powerful leverage to agents, middlemen and dealers operating in this market, in fixing rates of vegetables and fruits. Besides increased transportation charges, this monopoly of vegetable dealers is termed one of the main factors leading to push prices on the upper side.
The citizens and consumers' protection bodies have been demanding for quite some time to establish more vegetable and fruit markets in all the directions of the city so as to facilitate consumers and bring down prices of vegetables by reducing transportation costs and ending monopoly of dealers and middlemen. In fact, each of the 18 towns of Karachi needs its own central Sabzi Mandi. It seemed that the government planners were also well aware of this demand, and citizens read statements time and again about setting up of more Sabzi Mandis in the city.
In the first week of May 2006, Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, speaking at a meeting at the Chief Minister's House, said that in Karachi another Sabzi Mandi equipped with cold storage facilities would be set up at the National Highway, soon. Later, on June 1, speaking at a high-level pre-budget meeting for the year 2006-07 at the CM House, he said that three cold storages and three new Sabzi Mandis would be set up in the province.
On June 8, Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan presiding over a high-level meeting at the Governor's House said that in order to improve the supply of vegetables and fruits, four new Sabzi Mandis would be set up in Karachi. He said that the provincial and the city governments would establish two each of the new Sabzi Mandis, so that the monopoly of agents and middlemen over this trade should come to an end in order to provide relief to the masses.
Presently, almost all vegetables are being sold in Karachi at exorbitant rates. There are no two opinions that high transportation costs and monopoly of middlemen and agents in the lone Sabzi Mandi of the largest city of Pakistan are the main factors behind this price hike. Sources claim that profit margins in this highly lucrative business ranged from 50 to 500 per cent.
The fact that the only one wholesale vegetable market is operating in the city shows covert patronage the profiteer middleman mafia enjoys in our policymaking circles. Lessening the role of profiteer middlemen could provide a badly needed relief to the baffled consumers.
The city badly needs two major wholesale vegetable and fruit markets on the National Highway and the RCD Highway, besides one centralised Sabzi Mandi in each town of the city.—PPI
