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Published 22 Jun, 2010 12:00am

Powdered, tetra milk prices increased

Aamir Shafaat Khan

KARACHI Consumers on Monday received another price-shock after a dairy giant increased one-kg powdered milk and one-litre tetra pack prices by Rs40 and Rs3 respectively, without citing any reasons.

General Secretary Karachi Retail Grocers Group (KRGG) Farid Qureishi said the Nido one-kg pack would now cost Rs465 at retail level as compared to Rs425. In May the maker of Nido milk had raised the price to Rs425 from Rs395.

Similarly, Nestle Pakistan also pushed up the rate of one litre tetra milk to Rs65 from Rs62. In May, the price was raised to Rs62 from Rs58.

He urged the government to take serious notice of the price hike by the multinational company.

In June 2009, the one litre tetra pack and one-kg Nido powdered milk were available at Rs55 and Rs340 respectively.

The other manufacturers would follow suit.

Consumers had already received a severe jerk on May 1 when fresh milk rates were jacked up to Rs56 per litre from Rs52 per litre. On March 1, fresh milk rate was enhanced to Rs52 from Rs48.

The government has been ignoring the unilateral price hikes by the powerful dairy farmers and multinationals companies.

In the absence of any price effective official price regulatory mechanism, the retailers and dairy farmers are cashing in on the situation and fleecing the consumers.

Since the retail prices are not printed on the tetra and powdered milk packs in sheer violation of the legal requirement, it is not clear the new prices carry any GST. In case the GST is charged at the existing rate then the price is set to go up further by one per cent from July 1 as GST would be charged rate at 17 per cent from 16.

However, Farid Qureishi was of the view that there was no GST on tetra and powdered milk.

Meanwhile, retailers having old stocks in hands would fully cash the situation through inventory gains.

The demand of tetra and powdered milk has increased sharply after hectic media campaign launched by producers against fresh milk's handling procedure from dairy farms to retail shops.

The City government two years back had once tried to control its price by asking the producers of tetra and powdered milk to give reason for price hike. But later these producers said the price fixing of dairy items did not fall in the domain of the city government.

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