KARACHI, Sept 2: The City government has asked the retailers and wholesalers of various essential items to provide the last three months’ price list so that it could help in the fixing of prices for Ramazan.
The government has also asked them to announce a policy or a relief package for the citizens for the holy month.
Enterprise and Investment Promotion (E&IP) Group of Offices of the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) has also asked the leading manufacturers of the essential products to come out with the list of wholesale and retail prices, which prevailed during the last three months.
It has urged the manufacturers to consider announcing a special relief package for the general public during the holy month.
A marathon session of meetings with retailers, wholesalers and stakeholders will get under way from Monday as the City government is in the process of fixing the prices of essential items before September 10.
For fixing the atta (wheat flour) price, the E&IP has asked the Sindh Food department to fix the ex-mill and retail prices of atta and notify accordingly to enable the City government to include these in the consolidated price list of the essential commodities in the public interest.
It may be noted that the prices of various items like tea, ghee and cooking oil, bread, wheat flour, pulses, red and white meat, etc have already reached the peak level ahead of Ramazan.
Consumers, who had been paying higher prices for these items for the last few months, may not witness any relief in the holy month even if the manufacturers and market players (who had made windfalls) offer some gesture of reducing the rates.
In vegetables, supply of onion and tomato has been restored partially from the troubled Balochistan area. Supply of these two main items had come to a halt soon after the killing of Jambhori Watan Party chief Nawab Akbar Bugti last week. A dealer said that much depends on the political situation in Balochistan in coming days, especially just few days ahead of Ramazan as onion and tomato are currently being consumed from the big province crop as the Sindh crop will arrive in October/November.
He said that supply of onion and tomato from Balochistan is still half as compared to supply in normal days. As a result, the prices had normalised to some extent from the phenomenal jump occurred on the second day after the Bugti’s tragedy.
However, he said vegetable dealers may have to import onion and tomato from India through Wahga border or by sea from Mumbai in case supply is totally hampered from Balochistan. He said tomato is arriving from India through Wahga border for consumption in Punjab.
Executive district officer E&IP, Syed Abid Ali Shah said that actually there was a problem in fixing prices of vegetable and fruits at the retail level as dealers charge different prices depending on the area. Besides, there is no proper retail market in the city (on the pattern of wholesale market at Super Highway) from where people can buy vegetable and fruit at normal rates in Ramazan.
He said that the City government was planning to set up a retail vegetable and fruit market on trial basis in each town during Ramazan. In order to avoid any marked disparity in prices--the government is trying to encourage growers and Masha Khor (middlemen) of wholesale markets to bring the commodities directly at the retail market in each town.
Abid claimed that the manufacturers and retailers of various items had promised to provide some relief to the consumers in prices.
