KARACHI: Ginger price has gone up beyond Rs300 per kg, with retailers attributing the hike to closure of trading by the commodity’s wholesalers at Super Highway’s Sabzi Mandi since last Friday.

The vegetable, which was available at Rs240 per kg, is now selling for Rs280-320, depending on the area.

Retailers are seen offering limited quantity of ginger, and at higher prices, saying their stocks are thinning out. Interestingly, the official price of no.1 quality ginger fixed by the Karachi’s commissioner has been unchanged at Rs150 (wholesale) and Rs153 per kg (retail) for the last four days.

Sohail Mushtaq, a wholesaler at the Sabzi Mandi, said the market committee people had taken away over 100 bags of ginger worth Rs500,000 after breaking locks of shops last Thursday, accusing traders of using lemon salt (Tatri) and blancher (Rang Kat) for washing ginger which is hazardous for human consumption. But he said these items were commonly used in preparing various dishes. The traders pulled down their shutters in protest.

Vegetables are usually traded between 11.00pm and 11.00am in the market.

The wholesaler said ginger, whose daily consumption is 52 tonnes in Karachi, is currently arriving from Thailand, India and some quantities from Indonesia after already having undergone spray and chemical treatment. The commodity takes a month to reach Karachi Port from these destinations.

Blancher and lemon salt had been used for decades, without any record of having adverse effects on human health, he said. The traders even had clearance certificates issued by a government lab claiming that the two items were harmless, he added.

He accused the committee for selling out half of the confiscated bags in markets as they did not give any receipts or any official paper for taking away wholesalers’ stocks.

President Falahi Anjuman Wholesale Vegetable Market Sabzi Mandi Haji Shahjehan urged the market committee to let the traders work, as no case of any disease was reported in the last 40 to 50 years because of ginger consumption.

Published in Dawn, November 25th , 2014