August 18, 2006	Friday	Rajab 22, 1427

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LAHORE, Aug 17: Enforcing price-control regime on retailers through the newly-empowered magistrates may not provide relief to the common people as it has so far failed to tighten the noose around the big fish—the hoarders.

This was the consensus among some senior officers having considerable experience in controlling prices when they were commenting on why the introduction of price magistracy system had brought no worthwhile relief to the masses in the province.

The special magistrates, conspicuously active in the provincial metropolis, have conducted around 15,000 raids across Punjab during the month but prices of daily-use items are not registering any considerable decline.

According to the officers, for an effective control on the prices, the basic condition is an equally effective check on hoarding by unscrupulous traders.

The fault with the present campaign is that only the retailers are being targeted in the raids, while those supplying them food items at inflated rates are being totally ignored as not a single hoarder has so far been touched during the month-long drive, they say.

“How can a retailer getting his supplies at more than the prices fixed by the government sell them to customers at the subsidised rates?”

Deterred by continued raids, the retailers may halt the sale of eatables, resulting in shortage of these items in the open market, and forcing the customers to strike under-hand deals with the shopkeepers for getting the same at even higher prices, they argue.

The officials emphasise that the wholesale dealers and hoarders should be taken to task for the price hike by creating artificial shortage of various daily-use items.

“They (hoarders) should be asked about the logic behind the price hike. Neither the country has witnessed any influx of refugees nor the items are being exported resulting in scarcity of the same in the local market, then why their prices are registering increase.”

Lahore District Coordination Officer Muhammad Ijaz argues that the raids at retail level surely affect the wholesale market too.

He quotes the example of poultry prices which had registered an exorbitant increase during the previous weeks but were brought down through, what he called, untiring efforts by the magistrates, which forced the wholesalers to cut the same to a reasonable level.

He says the price issue has been solved at micro level but certainly more steps are required to handle it at macro level like taking timely decision of importing pulses etc.

Meanwhile, special magistrates conducted 249 raids in Lahore on Thursday, and slapped a sum of Rs139,500 on 38 shopkeepers as fine for overcharging their customers or giving them short measures.

The DCO has commended the performance of Data Gunj Bakhsh Town magistrate Tanveer Warraich and Nishtar Town magistrate Hafiz Muhammad Ahmad for raiding 73 and 32 shops, respectively.