KARACHI, Sept 1: The outlets of the Utility Stores Corporation (USC) witnessed a virtual rampage of buyers on the eve of Ramazan to procure essential items at discounted prices here on Monday.

The government has announced Rs1.75 billion subsidy or 5-10 per cent relief on 1,300 food and non-food products during the holy month. The items included spices, pickle, tomato ketchup, jam, jellies, syrups, kheer, custard powder, tooth paste, detergent, washing powders etc.

The substantial difference between the open market and utility stores rate lured crowds of buyers, especially from the middle- and lower-middle income group, mainly to buy flour, sugar, ghee and cooking oil, basen, etc.

USC Managing Director Brig Retd Hafeez Ahmed while talking to Dawn said that the sale in major cities at utility stores had tripled. “I checked Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad where the sale of essential goods was three times more than the normal day owing to tremendous response of the consumers”.

He claimed that stocks of essential items had been arranged to full capacity for the month. “There will be no shortage of goods at the stores in Ramazan,” he added.

Masood Alam Niazi, USC Zonal Manager for Karachi, said enough stocks of hot-selling items had already been managed to avoid any shortage.

He claimed that so far there had been no reports of shortage of any item. However, he added that much would depend on the demand and supply factors in the coming days.

The USC, after the phasing out of the subsidies by the government in last few months, has jacked up prices of various items.

For example, the one-kg pouch of ghee and cooking oil was available at Rs67 in April. Its price had been raised, in phases, to Rs120 in July. For Ramazan its rate is cut to Rs110.

Similarly, the sugar price has been reduced to Rs30.50 per kg from Rs32 per kg. In July the government had suddenly pushed up its rate to Rs31 from Rs25 per kg.

In local markets sugar sells at Rs33 per kg as its price has not been fixed by the city government.

The USC on July 12 made an increase of Rs50 on 10-kg flour bag to Rs200 from Rs150. Now the old rate of Rs150 has been restored for the holy month.

The gram pulse has been fixed at Rs47 per kg, from Rs50 in July, while its rate in June was Rs29 per kg. The city government has fixed the rate of Rs63 per kg, while till Monday it was available at Rs68-70 per kg. Super Basmati rice is available at Rs88 per kg at government stores. In July its prices had been raised to Rs93 from Rs80 per kg.

Under a Ramazan package, white gram sells at Rs63 per kg as compared to Rs68 while basen is now available at Rs59 per kg as compared to Rs65 per kg.

In the retail markets, the basen on Monday was sold at Rs80 per kg while the city government had fixed its rate at Rs67 per kg for best quality.

About 5,500 utility stores have been set up across the country to provide relief to the low-income people and 200 more outlets would be set up very soon to facilitate maximum number of people. In Karachi two more stores had been opened on Monday making a total of 170 stores (regular, franchise and mobile).