KARACHI, March 5: While daily trading in sugar at Jodia Bazaar has been suspended and no business transactions is being made, major wholesalers have turned down the city government's directive asking them to declare their stocks.

Only three wholesalers -- M/s A.B. Trading Company, Abdul Rasheed & Sons and Mohammad Bilal - came out with their stock positions but a city government official appeared reluctant to make the figures public as the total stocks were in a negligible quantity.

Trading in sugar at Jodia Bazaar was suspended on Friday and no business transaction vis-a-viz this commodity was conducted on Saturday.

The major wholesalers have urged the city government to check stocks of sugar millers, and not the wholesalers, as the latter did not usually keep stocks in abundance.

"The wholesalers now feel being subjected to harassment and sugar has already become short in Jodia Bazaar," Chairman of the Karachi Wholesalers' Grocers Association (KWGA) Malik Zulfiqar Ali told Dawn on Saturday.

Indicating that the process of trading and lifting of sugar on a daily basis was under way in the main markets of other cities without any interruption, he accused the city government of targeting only the traders of Jodia Bazaar. He questioned the justification for applying the order of stocks declaration only on Jodia Bazaar traders, and pointed out that there was no shortage of sugar in other markets of the city.

Mr Malik asked: "Why the city government is reluctant to check sugar millers' stock?" It may be mentioned here that through a public notice, the CDGK had ordered wholesalers of sugar to declare their stocks by March 4 failing which they could face action which includes seizure of any undeclared stocks.

On Saturday, no stocks could be seized as wholesalers in Jodia Bazaar kept all sugar trading and transactions suspended and remained sitting idle for the whole day.

An adviser to the KWGA, Anis Majeed, said that any attempt by the city government to seize sugar stocks was bound to fail as the traders in Jodia Bazaar did not keep any stocks whereas they had already suspended lifting of sugar since Friday.

EDO Raeesuddin Paracha revealed that the sugar wholesalers had threatened to suspend their business indefinitely if they were harassed. He said they had also hinted that sugar could 'disappear' from the market if the city government insisted on stock declaration.

Mr Paracha said that the chief secretary and agriculture department had been informed of the situation and asked to immediately convene a meeting of the sugar millers so that the ex-mill price of the commodity could be fixed at a reasonable level. He pointed out that the millers were releasing their sugar stocks at Rs24.30 per kg.

He said the city government could control the price spiral only after the official rate was fixed afresh, and the rate could be finalized jointly by the agriculture department and sugar millers.