KARACHI, Jan 10: While mill flour on Thursday found its way into the retail market at Rs18 a kilo, consumers had a hard time obtaining both chakki atta and fine atta which seem to have disappeared because their rates have not been fixed by the government.
Sources told Dawn that retailers had suspended the sale of fine flour.
Most retailers placed the 10kg bags outside their shops, selling flour at the rate of Rs18 per kilogram while the city government officials imposed fines for selling flour over the official retail rate of Rs17.5 per kg. They were offering excuses to the customers for not having chakki atta and fine atta because they feared to be apprehended by city government officials despite the fact that no official rates of chakki and fine atta had been fixed so far. The price of chakki and fine atta was over Rs30 and Rs28-29 per kg respectively. The 10kg fine atta bag has already become a rare commodity for which some retailers, who had old stocks, were demanding over Rs270.
The retailers said that they were bound to keep mill atta because city government officials allegedly wanted to keep the number of retailers fined increasing with every passing day in the absence of any official rate of chakki and fine atta.
At a retail store in North Nazimabad, Block-M, a woman said that Rs180 for a 10kg bag of mill atta was too much keeping in view the poor quality of flour. She said consumers who did not have choice sacrificed both on quality and price as markets were facing acute shortage of chakki and fine atta. She said that millers were providing atta after extracting maida and suji for which consumers were being asked to invest time, efforts and huge sums.
Since the flour crisis had hit the country, flour produced by some unpopular millers was available on sale at shops but quality-conscious buyers avoided purchasing it. On the other side, the poor consumers were seen compromising on quality because of its cheap price.
“Why the government does not provide subsidy or benefit on popular brands. Consumers are being forced to buy low quality mill atta,” a consumer said.
Retailers were wondering how they could be made to sell flour at reduced rate when they had procured it at higher rates.
Profiteering
In the absence of any check on prices by price magistrates, retailers in many areas reportedly sold a 10kg flour bag for Rs200 though the food department had fixed the retail atta price at Rs17.50 per kilogram and ex-mill price at Rs17 per kg.
Additional EDO Revenue and official in charge of the price-checking campaign Matanat Ali Khan said that 80 retailers were fined Rs162,000 on Wednesday and Thursday for over-charging while some 18 retailers, including two owners of leading stores in Clifton, were sent to jail.
Most of these retailers were fined in Saddar, Malir, Clifton and Jamshed towns for selling mill atta at the rate of Rs22 to Rs24 per kilogram.
When he was asked why retailers were selling mill atta at Rs18 instead of Rs17.50 per kg, he said that a margin of 50 paisa per kg could be tolerated.
However, he said that the rate at the stalls situated outside the mill was Rs17 per kg and no flour miller was found violating the official ex-mill rate.
Mr Khan said that the price-checking team was mainly monitoring mill atta sale and not chakki or fine atta since no official price for both varieties had been fixed by the provincial government.
Utility stores
Despite availability of 10kg bags of mill atta at Rs180, the rush of consumers at the utility stores did not subside on Thursday.
There is still a difference of Rs50 in the prices of 10kg bag available at the utility stores and retail shops. A flour bag being sold at retail shops for Rs180 was available at utility stores at the rate of Rs130. The difference is enough to lure a large population of price-conscious buyers in the city.
The Sindh and Balochistan Zone Manager of Utility Stores Corporation, Masood Alam Niazi, said the rush of buyers at utility stores remained the same on Thursday because many people perhaps did not know about the availability of mill atta at retail shops.
He said that the number of buyers at utility stores would definitely decline if the government and flour mills succeeded in ensuring the availability of mill atta at retail shops and at the mills’ stalls in coming days, followed by effective price-checking campaigns.
Mr Niazi said the corporation was providing 20,000 to 22,000 bags of 10kg flour daily to 110 regular and franchise utility stores in Karachi as compared with 8,000-9,000 bags two months back. But, the improved supply was still proving inadequate to meet the rising demand.
He said that the government had increased the wheat supply to the USC from 50,000 tons to 100,000 tons per month after the arrival of imported wheat. He was optimistic that the enhanced quota would help meet the burgeoning demand.
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