KARACHI, April 21: As the city government is considering fixing tetra milk prices, a leading tetra milk producer has enhanced the rate by Rs2 to Rs6 on various packs.

According to General Secretary Karachi Retail Grocers Group (KRGG) Farid Qureishi, the one litre, half litre and quarter pack of Milk Pak would now be available at Rs76, Rs42 and Rs22 as against Rs70, Rs38 and Rs20 respectively. He said Everyday tea whitener rate had been raised to Rs470 from Rs420, while a cream pack would cost Rs55 as compared to Rs50.

He said the company, which did not give any reason for price hike, had announced the rate on April 9 but it could not be implemented due to city government’s decision to fix its rate. In view of no follow-up of the decision the company had raised the prices. Supplies at new rates will start from Friday.

The company had made last price hike in November 2010. In June 2009, tetra milk was available at Rs55 per litre.

The city government three years back had tried to control tetra milk prices but the producers said the price fixing of dairy items did not fall in the domain of the city government.

In the second week of this month, the city government had decided to fix the rate of tetra milk like other grocery items. It was decided that the final decision would be taken during a meeting to be chaired by the District Coordination Officer. However, the city government had made no progress on fixing the tetra milk price so far.

The city government had already succumbed to the dairy farmers’ lobby who had increased the rate of fresh milk to Rs66 from Rs60 on April 9 despite fixing the price at Rs60 per litre on April 4.

District Officer Price Control Wasiq Hussain Faridi said that the officials lack magisterial powers to control the price hike by the traders.

On tetra pack, he said that big companies are actually selling fresh milk in tetra pack after removing the cream. Tetra milk contains only 2.5 per cent of cream and it should not be sold at higher rates, he added.

He added that at dairy farmers’ stage, the content of cream in the milk is six per cent which later is reduced to 4.5 per cent at retailers’ stage.

He said that from March 18 till today around 1,200 traders were charge sheeted.