MANSEHRA: With the advent of winter in upper parts of Hazara a sharp increase has been recorded in the prices of firewood and besides forest wood the used wood collected from damaged houses is also being sold at Rs550 per 40kg instead of earlier Rs430 in the local market.

Low gas pressure is also one of reasons which caused the hike in prices of firewood in the market here as commercial and domestic natural gas consumers are using firewood for cooking and other purposes owing to low gas pressure.

Mohammad Khalil, a firewood seller, said that owing to limited forests of firewood the owners were selling trees on high prices and those buying standing trees also had to spend a big amount of money on cutting and transportation, thus resulting in increasing wood prices.

“Prices of almost all commodities are going up, which affected our business too,” said Mr Khalil. He said that the prices of wood from different types of trees had gone up by roughly Rs50 per 40kgs. He said that the price of ‘Darak’ wood had been increased from Rs350 to Rs400 per 40kgs and used wood, mostly received from damaged houses, was being sold at Rs550 per 40kgs.

“Despite rising prices the sale of firewood has shot up with the advent of winter and we are expecting further increase in the sale from mid December,” he said.

The residents say that the government is responsible for the hike in prices of firewood. “Prices of almost all consumer items are increasing with every passing day. Even gas and electricity tariff has been increased recently and same is the case with firewood,” said Gul Dad, who was buying wood at a sale point at Karakoram Highway in city.

Mr Dad said that he was a labourer and hardly earned Rs500 a day, adding that it was very difficult for him to manage expenses of his kitchen these days. “I simply can’t afford to buy firewood due to the high prices,” he said.

Another buyer Mohammad Ajmal said that the ongoing energy crisis in the country was the basic reason for the high prices of commodities, but the government was not sincerely working to address this core issue.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2015