HYDERABAD, Jan 5: The district government on Friday warned milk retailers and wholesalers of action if they charged more than the official rates for milk and its by-product, yoghurt, fixed before Eid-ul-Azha.

A committee formed by District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil with EDO Revenue Abdul Sattar Jatoo as its head and EDO Agriculture Shahbuddin Siddiqui, union council nazims Nasir Baloch and Q. Mohammad Hakim as members, met with milk sellers at district nazim's secretariat and advised them to comply with district government's directives.

The committee asked the retailers to sell milk at pre-December 31 price, Rs28 a kilogram for milk and Rs36 a kilo for yoghurt. The price of milk saw a jump to Rs32 and yoghurt to Rs42 after December.

The wholesalers said that they were getting milk at exorbitant rates from the cattle pen owners leaving them with no other option but to raise prices in turn.

The committee said that such fluctuation in rates always occurred in the market in the months of November, December and January but it had no affect on the prices of milk and its by-products.

The retailers were to revise prices in March but they did it in January without taking the district government or any other concerned authority into confidence, it was learnt.

Data on per kilo price of milk obtained from other cities of the province except for Karachi revealed that price of milk and yoghurt remained stable.

The representatives of retailers and wholesalers contended that quality of milk in Hyderabad and Karachi was much better than that of other cities of the province.

But, the committee did not agree to their claim saying that people were generally not satisfied with the quality of milk they were getting and they believed that it was adulterated.

The milk sellers said that another reason for raise was jump in the prices of oilcake and fodder. But the committee did not accept their argument warning that if they deviated from official prices they would have to face action.

The committee decided to hold another meeting on Saturday at 1 pm to hear the viewpoint of fodder and oilcake traders and ask them not to raise the prices of cattle feed.

A committee member disclosed to Dawn that cattle pen owners who received money in advance to keep uninterrupted supply of milk to the retailers forced retailers to raise advance money to ensure the supply remained uninterrupted.

He said that the fact had been brought to the notice of other committee members and if milk sellers did not comply with the district government’s directives they would be challaned.

The EDO of revenue avoided to disclose the details of the meeting and said that milk sellers would have to face action if they did not ensure stability in prices.