KARACHI: City administration on Monday informed the Sindh High Court that it had so far unable to fix the official price of fresh milk as meetings were under way with stakeholders.

An additional commissioner appeared in court on behalf of the Karachi commissioner and submitted that negotiations with all stakeholders were in the final phase and another meeting was scheduled for Nov 24 (tomorrow).

The bench directed the commissioner to fix the milk price within four weeks and sought a compliance report.

When a two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M. Shaikh took up a petition for hearing about the price and quality of milk, additional commissioner filed a compliance report on behalf of the commissioner.

It was stated in the report that various meetings had been taken place in the office of the commissioner to fix a rational and justified price of milk and a committee had also been constituted to assess and analyse the cost of production of milk.

“The commissioner office has been negotiating with all stakeholders and is in the final phase to finalise milk price in local limits of Karachi division and for that another meeting is scheduled on Nov 24,” it maintained.

The report further stated that district administration had imposed fine against 2,310 profiteers and collected Rs11,918,500.

In September, a division bench of SHC had directed the commissioner to sit together with officials of the Sindh Food Authority and representatives of milk associations and chalk out a formula to ensure the quality of fresh milk as well as its sell at official price. The court also sought a proper statement from the commissioner containing guidelines approved by the meeting.

The bench had also said that out of box steps be taken in collaboration with representatives of milk association to ensure quality and price of milk.

However, the commissioner in its report filed last month submitted that the price of fresh milk could not be fixed and all meetings remained unproductive due to antagonism, inflexibility and rigidity of retailers, wholesaler and dairy farmers associations. He added that the next meeting was scheduled to be held on Oct 28 to determine and fix the rational and judicious price of fresh milk.

It was submitted in the petition that the official price of per litre fresh milk was fixed at Rs94 in the metropolis in 2018, but it was being sold at around Rs140 per litre in different parts of the city in violation of the notified rates and court orders.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2021