THE campaign against fruit vendors was launched by educated people who should have known that they are waging a war on people who are the poorest of society and cannot over charge because in the retail commodity market you cannot make cartels. Every vendor would wish to sell his produce — in this case perishable — and rush home with food for the family.

In my opinion, these educated people are an extended arm of the same mafia that has roots right up to the powerful circles of the government and actually protect the elements responsible for price hikes.

The fruit vendors are as helpless as the consumers and in many instances both are nothing but daily wage earners.

The price hike during Ramazan has two dimensions: 1) the demand actually rises phenomenally and the natural supply-demand factors come into play, and 2) the middlemen, commission agents or arthis as they are called in local parlance, control the vendors’ prices as well as the growers to whom they provide intermittent loans throughout the year and thereby monopolise on their produce. These are the people who are well connected and have influence in the power corridors.

If you stop buying fruit for a few days the arthis will cold-store the items but the vendors who are in the tens of thousands in number will actually go without food. In fact the vendors will lose their perishable capital and go out of business altogether. A rethink on this issue is needed in a way that resolves the problem and takes care of the poor.

M. Anis Motiwala

Karachi

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2017