KARACHI, Sept 5: As the Sept 1 price hike of diesel and petrol has yet to impact the prices of essential items, the city government has decided to start its pre-Ramazan meetings with traders, wholesalers and stockists of various items from Tuesday to ascertain the market situation and control the price escalation.
In the first meeting to be held on Tuesday, retailers and wholesalers of essential commodities are called, while traders, millers and stockists of flour, sugar, vegetables, fruits, etc., will also present their point of view in a series of meetings over the next one week to finalize prices for Ramazan, starting from the first week October.
While the retailers have already raised the prices of pulses by Rs2 to Rs7 per kg, the wholesalers claim that the retailers have increased the rates unnecessarily as prices at the wholesale level remained unchanged.
However, they said the impact of rise in diesel and petrol prices would reflect in the wholesale prices in coming weeks. They said that any increase in diesel and petrol caused a rise of 50 paisa to Re1 per kg on pulses, sugar, flour, rice, etc.
Wholesalers of vegetables and fruits said that the impact of POL price hike was not yet reflected fully at the retail level, but it would definitely make an impact of Rs1-2 per kg on current prices.
A city government official said: “We will ask the market people to reveal their stocks in order unearth hoarding and stock piling in the market.” He said the city government would try to provide relief to the consumers by fixing prices on the lower side.
He said the prices of pulses were on the rise, but the city government would strongly urge the traders to bring back the prices at the August levels.
The government will spend a whole week in meeting various market bodies of essential items as well as millers of sugar, flour and rice.
He said Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had already given strict instructions to the provincial and city governments for checking the prices during Ramazan.
However, the efforts of the city government, after the devolution of powers in 2001, had not been satisfactory in containing the prices. The price regulators remained engaged in sending reminders and letters to the Sindh government for giving magisterial powers to all its officials so that they could impose fine and take action in an effective way. But the Sindh government had either given powers to the officials very late or in the middle of Ramazan which proved futile.
The Sindh government last year had decided that only those officials would be given magisterial powers who held law degree and had a background of area magistrates. Under this condition, only seven city government officials were given magisterial powers. As a result, the price controlling campaign ended in failure, as seven officials were not enough to handle the mega city of over 150 million of population.
The increase in prices of milk, meat, flour varieties, sugar, pulses, vegetables, fruits, etc., during Ramazan has become a regular feature for the last few years. Even vested interests have been successful in creating such a situation in which prices of these items start moving up ahead of the holy month.
This year again the old and new market players are in the field and they know how to dictate their terms during the price review meetings.
The city government officials have also been lethargic in preparing a counter-strategy during the meeting with the market people. They lack any market information regarding the import of commodities during the last one year and a month ahead of Ramazan, crop situation and supplies from the producing areas, market stocks, reason of price hike, etc. If the officials do their homework ahead of the pre-Ramazan meeting, traders may find it difficult to dodge them.
The most difficult task for the city government is to force sugar and wheat growers to cut their prices, as the price regulators could not use their powers because some of the people in the government have their own sugar and wheat growing
areas.
A draft ordinance called “The Price and Profiteering Control Ordinance Sindh 2005” was presented to the Sindh government by the city government a few months back so that it could become a law, but so far nothing has been done. Besides, Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad last year had come out with an idea for setting up a consumer research council, but it is yet to come into action.
There are many other consumer bodies that claim to protect the interest of end-users, but their efforts have been limited to only paper work and drawing rooms. They hardly raise any voice over price hikes of POL products and other essential items.
Two fortnights — September 15 and September 30 — are falling ahead of Ramazan in which the Oil Companies Advisory Committee will decide the fortnightly prices in view of continuous increase in world crude oil and finished product prices.
