August 02, 2007	Thursday	Rajab 17, 1428

KARACHI, Aug 1: As Ramazan is approaching the consumers’ purse has begun squeezing as prices of all food items, barring some vegetables, including flour, pulses, fresh and powered milk, ghee and cooking oil, poultry items etc., have resumed upward march.

Both the federal and provincial governments have yet to come out with some practical measures to check soaring prices ahead of the holy month, starting from the second week of September.

According to a random market survey (from July 1 to August 1) carried out by Dawn revealed that retailers had finally increased the rates of all varieties of flour despite flour millers’ claim that they had not increased the atta prices following increase in wheat prices.

However, some millers had pushed up the rates of 10-kg fine atta bags.

Bread makers had also enhanced the rates of bread and other products by Re1 to Rs2 from August 1.

Despite a good crop of over 700,000 tons this year, consumers had to bear the burden of paying higher rates for gram pulse. It was now available at Rs48 (fine quality) at retail as compared to Rs36 per kg a month back.

Masur became costlier to Rs52 as compared to Rs48 while arhar was selling at Rs55 as compared to Rs52 per kg.

An importer of pulses said that gram pulse price had been reasonable keeping in view high transportation charges, utility bills’ rates, labour charges etc.

He said masur price had been high because of costlier imports from Canada and Australia. However, local crop of 25,000 this year was insufficient to meet the local demand.

He added that heavy buying of arhar by India from Burma had led to increase in its international rates. Importers had stopped importing arhar because of higher rates. Its stocks from old costlier imports were now depleting.

Poultry bird was available at Rs84 per kg as compared with Rs62 per kg while its meat was selling at Rs140 per kg as compared to Rs110 per kg. A wholesaler attributed the price hike to fall in production caused by June-July rains and heat wave.

He said that around 2.6 million chicks were being produced per week as compared to 3.4 million. Even breeding farms in northern areas had also shown decline in production of chicks because of rains and heat.

Makers of Nido milk had increased the retail rate of one-kg pouch to Rs310 from Rs295 while fresh milk price had also surged to Rs34-36 per litre as compared to Rs32 a month back. The city government had virtually failed in handling the fresh milk price increase issue. Besides, the federal government was least bothered to take cognizance of frequent rise in prices made by a leading powered milk producer.

Branded ghee and cooking oil packers had increased prices by Rs32 per five-litre and kg tins as a result of persistent increase of palm olien prices in Malaysian and Indonesian markets.

There was some relief in the prices of vegetables which had seen unprecedented rise because of heavy rains and floods in June. The supply from upcountry producing areas had improved.

 

Here is a chart of 39 selected items' prices on July 01, 2007 as compared to August 1, 2007. The unit of measurement is one kg except where otherwise explained. And January 2007 column is also presented for the comparison.
	Items	Rs	Rs	Rs	Rs
1	Wheat Flour  (Atta no.2.5)	15	15	16	1	6.67
	Atta Fine Mill	16	16	17	1	6.25
	Atta Chakki	17	17	18	1	5.88
	Asharfi Fine 10kg bag	160	160	175	15	9.38
2	Basmati (Premium)	46	65	65	0	0
3	Basmati (Broken)	22	32	32	0	0
4	Rice (Irri-6)	16	22	22	0	0
5	Masur	40	48	52	4	8.33
6	Moong	47	60	60	0	0
7	Mash	66	60	60	0	0
8	Arhar	46	52	55	3	5.77
9	Gram pulse	48	36	48	12	33.33
10	Sugar	30	28	30	2	7.14
11	Ghee 16kg tin	1030	1265	1290	25	1.98
12	Cooking Oil Dalda 2.5 kg tin	228	260	275	15	5.77
13	Vegetable Ghee Dalda 2.5 ltr tin	228	260	275	15	5.77
14	Vegetable Ghee (Loose)	59	78	80	2	2.56
15	Cooking Oil 5 ltr Dalda	440	498	530	32	6.43
16	Cooking Oil (Loose)	59	78	80	2	2.56
17	Tea Packet (Brooke Bond Supreme 250 gms)	70	65	65	0	0
18	Red Chillies (Whole Dandicut)	90	140	180	40	28.57
19	Red Chillies (Powder National 400 gms)	62	62	62	0	0
20	Mutton	260	260	260	0	0
21	Beef (with bones)	140	150	150	0	0
22	Beef (without bones)	170	200	200	0	0
23	Poultry Bird	66	62	84	22	35.48
24	Poultry meat	110	110	140	30	27.27
25	Egg (per dozen)	46	38	37	-1	-2.63
26	Milk fresh (Per Litre)	34	32	34	2	6.25
27	Milk Powder (Nido 1kg)	260	295	310	15	5.08
28	Onion	28	15	12	-3	-20
29	Garlic	60	60	45	-15	-25
	Garlic Powder
	(National 60gm)	18	18	18	0	0
30	Coriander Powder
	(National 400 gm)	45	45	45	0	0
31	Turmeric Powder
	National 100 gm)	15