April 27, 2007	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 09, 1428

KARACHI, April 26: The City District Government Karachi has once again come out with a price list of 66 items providing only retail rates which are either below or above the prevailing wholesale rates.

In some cases, official retail prices and prevailing wholesale prices are the same.

However, the market people have again rejected the price-list, saying they have neither been taken into confidence, nor consulted before publishing and fixing the rates.

They said it is hard to swallow how retail prices have been worked out without the wholesale price column in the list.

Sources said no concluding meeting with market players had been called by the price regulator for a final discussion before publishing the list.

They said regular and genuine traders who had been providing a helping hand during the last few years to the CDGK and on the eve of Ramazan, had been ignored while finalising the rates.

The city government had come out with a price-list of 51 items on March 10, in collaboration with the Water Pump Welfare Association in which rates were fixed on the higher side compared to prevailing market rates.

However, the March 10 price-list was not followed in a single market and even shopkeepers, who had high reservations on prices, avoided displaying the list.

On April 25, the government issued the list on its own and it would be effective till May 15.

The government claimed that all stakeholders had been taken into confidence. The list also included names of some market players. Of them, many are not satisfied with the issuance of the price list.

For example, Mash pulse retail rate has been fixed at Rs54 per kg while its wholesale rate is Rs62. Mash (whole) has been tagged at Rs50 while it is available at Rs60 per kg.

Mash (whole black) at wholesale is Rs58 per kg while the price- list carries its retail rate at Rs50 per kg. Arhar has been fixed at Rs52 per kg while it is priced at Rs44 per kg at wholesale.

The official rate of Moong (washed) is Rs54 per kg and the same is the case with its wholesale price. Moong (whole) is fixed at Rs48 compared to its wholesale rate of Rs55 per kg.

Mohammad Farid Qureishi, general secretary of Karachi Retail Grocers Group (KRGG), claimed that the controller of general prices, CDGK, had not taken the group into confidence while preparing a price list.

The CDGK has printed the names of market players by showing that they attended the meeting before finalisation of the price list.

“Even my name has been printed, but neither I, nor my other members are happy with the rates,” he said.

He said the price-list carries price of low consumption items like mash, moong and atta (Bajra), but it does not carry rates of sugar, ghee and cooking oil.

Farid said atta no 2.5 rate has been fixed at Rs15 per kg while the Sindh government has notified the rate at Rs12.50 per kg while the 80 kg bag of atta no.2.5 is selling at Rs1,080.

He urged the City Nazim, Mustafa Kamal, to take notice of the price list which had been issued without monitoring the prevailing market rates.