ISLAMABAD: Amid backbreaking inflation that has remained a cause of concern for the policymakers, high-ranking bureaucrats in two provinces appear least interested in utilising the Decision Support System for Inflation (DSSI), a tool created to monitor the prices of essential consumer goods.

In contrast, the other two provinces showed some interest, with the top bureaucrat from the largest province dedicating the most time to monitoring prices through the DSSI. This disparity in the use of DSSI was revealed from a monthly login report shared in the meeting of the National Price Monitoring Committee (NPMC) on Tuesday.

The chief secretary of Punjab logged into the DSSI app 39 times, while the chief secretary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa followed with nine logins. However, the chief secretaries of Sindh and Balochistan did not log in even once during the same period to monitor the consumer price levels in their respective provinces.

In the PTI-led coalition government, the Paki­stan Bureau of Statistics introduced the DSSI to record the gap between actual prices of essential food items and rates fixed by the district administrations. The web-based tool collects and analyses data and produces a report that compares the prices of commodities in different districts.

The widget use of this tool highlighted the inability of district administrations to stabilise prices within their jurisdiction. Consequently, under bureaucratic pressure, the system was discontinued in 2021. However, the DSSI was reinstated under the directive of caretaker Planning Mini­ster Sami Saeed.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2023