KARACHI, Sept 16: The city government has finally given the wake-up call to market players and stakeholders to discuss and finalize prices of essential items during Ramazan on Sept 20.

As the holy month is likely to start from October 15 or 16, wholesale price of sugar has started crawling up in the market. On Thursday, its price surged to Rs19.85 per kg from Rs19.20 a day back.

Its impact is yet to witness at the retail level as the price is intact at Rs21 per kg. However, in case its price is not checked and controlled, consumers are likely to pay more ahead of the holy month.

Surprisingly, sugar is the only item which does not fall in the purview of price fixing exercise of the city government. Like past years, this commodity will again be on the market forces to determine its price this year.

The price of sugar may remain under pressure in future as the government is yet to give a final go-ahead for the sale of huge buffer stocks of sugar in the market currently lying with the Trading Corporation of Pakistan.

Executive District Officer (EDO), Enterprise and Investment Promotion, city government, Raisuddin Paracha, said sugar did not fall in the purview of the city government to fix its price, but retailers and wholesalers would be asked to control its surge on the September 20 meeting. He said the price of sugar was moving up due to stock piling in the market ahead of the holy month.

The EDO said the pre-Ramazan meeting had been called upon much earlier this year as compared to 15 days earlier in the previous year so that the issue of price fixing and stock situation could be ascertained.

Mr Paracha said the stakeholders and market forces would be asked to keep freeze on the price from September 20 in order to control further hike in rates. The city government is likely to face a tough task again in checking and controlling prices of fruits, vegetables, meat (beef and mutton), milk and flour varieties.

Last year, price regulators had virtually failed in their efforts in exerting any pressure on the sellers and producers of these items and ultimately consumers had to suffer by paying more.

Many consumers think that vesting magisterial powers to the deputy district officers (Revenue) to curb profiteering from the first day of the holy month literally prove futile as retailers, after paying a nominal fine on charge of profiteering, becomes free for the whole day to make windfalls.

The DDOs should be given powers one month ahead of Ramazan so that price hike trend, which gears up momentum during that period, should be checked and controlled. City Nazim Naimatullah Khan has already sought magisterial powers from the Sindh government for the DDOs to control price escalation in Ramazan.

To control the price hike in fruits and vegetables, Mr Paracha said that a strategy was being chalked out to allow the Union Council nazim to set up at least one stall of fruits and vegetables in their areas. Besides, 54 complaint centres, same of the last year, are also planned to be set up in various areas.

He said a total of Rs1.5 millionhad been collected last year on account of fines and challans. He claimed that prices of all essential items, except sugar, had been under control so far. The same claim also came from retailer and wholesalers' bodies.

The consumer inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index has gone up by 9.29pc in August, 9.33pc in July, 8.45 per cent in June and 7.13 per cent in May. The regulators may face a hard time to put up any pressure on the market forces in the pre-Ramazan meetings to fix the price on their terms as these players, never bothered about consumers' hardships in Ramazan, will pressurise the government officials to fix the price on their terms in view of rising trend in prices of essential items.