ISLAMABAD: The government has finalised a new set of measures to implement over a couple of weeks for checking profiteering and hoarding to control prices of essential food items across the country.

The decisions were taken in a special meeting chaired by the Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Statistics Division Makh­dum Khusro Bakhtyar on Monday. Secretary Statistics Division Ms Shaista Sohail gave the presentation to the meeting on the current mechanism of price collection from the market.

An official source told Dawn that the new measures are designed in a way to ensure that inflation goes down by involving district-based price committees headed by respective deputy commissioners.

It has been decided to distribute tablets to designated focal persons in identified markets and cities. Through these and other means, real-time data regarding prices will be collected for the weekly, monthly prices indexes — Sensitive Price Indexes and Consumer Prices Indexes.

According to the official source, the data will also be collected through emails. To check the accuracy of data collection, the official said that a geographic information system will be designed to see whether the data was actually collected or not.

The new price mechanism will be used to check price hoarding, profiteering by involving the district price committees.

It was also decided upon the directive of the planning minister that the Statistics Division will collect data of essential food items on Mondays rather than Thursdays to have a clear picture of prices of key items at the beginning of the week.

According to an official statement, the federal planning minister has said that the government is committed to providing relief to marginalised sections of the society through effective monitoring and implementation of price control of food items.

The secretary statistics division informed the minister that inflation for essential kitchen items have been less than 1pc since August 2018.

The minister noted that poor market information leads to profiteering and hoarding and stressed on developing close collaboration between all the stakeholders including market committees and district administration across the country.

Bakhtyar directed that the mechanism should be devised to educate the public on economic statistics especially the trends in consumer price index (CPI) and inflation.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2019