KARACHI, Feb 24: Irrespective of the merits and demerits of the shifting of Sabzi Mandi (the wholesale vegetable market) from University Road to the Super Highway in 2001, the ultimate sufferers are consumers as retailers demand exorbitant prices in view of increase in transportation cost and other overheads.

A retailer, who asked not to be named, said that retailers had to maintain a minimum difference of Rs6 to Rs8 per kilo from the original wholesale price. This includes Rs3 as labour and transportation cost from Sabzi Mandi to different areas of the city. Besides, they have to keep Rs2 to Rs3 per kg as expenses in shape of labour working at the retail shop, wastages, shop’s rent, sorting and labour food. In addition, retailers have the right to keep a profit of Rs2 to Rs3 per kg.

Because of increase in transportation cost and other overheads, retailers sell vegetables keeping these expenditures aside and making maximum profits.

For instance, onion is being sold at Rs5 per kilo at the wholesale market but retailers in the city are charging Rs10 to Rs12 per kg. It means that if a retailer is getting a profit of Rs2 per kg he has already managed to absorb other expenditures in the selling price. This practice adopted by retailers has been in vogue since the shifting of the wholesale market outside the city.

In the absence of any retail price checking, retailers enjoy free hand in taking out most from the consumers’ pocket. Price regulators appear least bothered and whenever there is a demand and supply gap owing to delay in arrivals from farms, low production or higher import value, retailers cross all barriers to charge double of the actual rate fixed in the wholesale market.

A retailer said that vegetable dealers had been paying Rs300 to Rs500 as transportation cost from Sabzi Mandi to various areas depending on the weight, distance and increase in petroleum prices since 2001. He said they used to pay Rs100 to Rs200 per trip from the University Road Market to other city areas ahead of 2001.

He said it was the right decision of the government to move the wholesale trade to the Super Highway as old market used to cause heavy traffic jams and congestions, environmental pollution and even accidents. He did not agree that retailers had been enjoying a field day on the pretext of the shifting of the wholesale market. “Customers are very tricky these days. They search the rates in two to three shops and prefer to buy at a shop which has the lowest rates,” he said, adding that there was a lot of competition among the vegetable dealers.

The real benefit of shifting Sabzi Mandi is being enjoyed by pushcart vegetable owners, who charge Rs2 to Rs5 more than regular retailers trading in various markets.

The shifting of Sabzi Mandi has also created a big disparity in retail prices as vegetable dealers based in posh areas ask for Rs2 to Rs3 per kg more because they have to pay a higher haulage cost than the dealers doing business in the middle income group areas.

For example, if the wholesale price of onion ranges between Rs5 and Rs6 per kilo, it is retailed at the rate of Rs10 per kg in the areas such as Nazimabad, F.B. Area, North Nazimabad and Karimabad. But in posh areas such as Defence and Clifton, retailers charge over Rs12 per kg. There were hardly such big variations in prices when the Sabzi Mandi was not shifted to the city’s outskirts.

The Falahi Anjuman Wholesale Vegetable Market Chairman, Haji Shahjehan, told Dawn that the shifting of the wholesale market to the Super Highway had deprived the regular buyers, who used to purchase fruits and vegetables on the way to their homes from offices on daily and weekly basis.

At the new marketplace, he said, there were hardly five per cent regular buyers as they avoided travelling 20-kilometre distance to purchase fruits and vegetables at the wholesale rate. Because of higher transportation cost, majority of people found it less feasible to visit the new Sabzi Mandi. Resultantly, mostly of the buyers were retailers and shopkeepers of vegetables, he added. He described the government’s move to shift the vegetable market to the city’s outskirts a wrong decision from consumers’ point of view.

He claimed that 4,500 wholesale dealers had been asked to quit the old Sabzi Mandi at “gunpoint”.