KARACHI, Nov 6: The city government is lining up volunteers to ensure a smooth and regular supply of meat at the prescribed rates throughout the city as meat merchants have resorted to resume a shutter-down strike on Thursday in the continued row over prices.

City Nazim Naimatuallah Khan has asked Nazims of Union Councils to form a volunteer corps with a task to man retail outlets of meat as part of the strategy to counter the blackmail tactics on the part of the meat merchants.

The new development emerged following a meeting between the City Nazim and a delegation of meat exporters led by Raja Mohammad Dawood Junejo of Pakistan Food Products.

Mr Junejo assured the Nazim that availability of mutton at the city government’s recommended prices would be ensured in the larger interest of general public.

It has been planned that the volunteers would approach exporters to receive goat meat and bring it to their respective outlets for sale. The city government has also decided to establish such outlets at specific places throughout the city besides at bachat bazaars during Ramazan.

The Nazim has appealed to the citizens to extend their full cooperation to the city government without any fear of action by ‘butchers mafia’. The aim of the new exercise, he maintained, was to counter the threats from the mafia and ensure supply of meat to the people at reasonable prices.

Sources told Dawn on Thursday that the city government was also considering the idea that poultry outlets in the metropolis be used for the sale of mutton as the meat exporters had asked for the availability of a sufficient number of retail outlets to ensure success of the whole exercise. They have also offered supply of goat meat to the outlets in refrigerated trucks.

The sources said that exporters were keenly interested in bulk supply instead of small consignments. Their quoted quantity appeared to be around 5,000 goats per day, the sources added.

An official of the city government said that the exporters, in their meeting with the City Nazim, said that the meat merchants’ claim that meat export on a large scale was responsible for the increased in meat prices was wrong.

The per day export of meat from Pakistan comes to about 20 tonnes only, i.e. 0.1 per cent of the total slaughtering in the city which is negligible, the exporters contended.

The official wondered that while mutton of grade A was being exported at Rs140 per kg, local merchants were not ready to sell it at even a higher price.

Meanwhile, Naimatullah Khan has categorically declared that the city government would not compromise on meat prices. Terming the meat sellers’ strike ‘blackmail’, the Nazim said such tactics and threats would not be tolerated.

He observed that it would make no difference if citizens did not consume meat for a week or a month. He revealed that he was constantly receiving phone calls from citizens encouraging the city government for its tough and just stand on meat prices issue.

He was confident that meat merchants would have to come to people’s terms if the latter demonstrated their determination not to pay unfairly raised rates for meat.