KARACHI: Failing to provide any price relief during the first 20 days of Ramazan owing to ineffective price checking campaigns by the Commissioner Karachi, consumers continue to brave huge price disparity between the official and market rates of fruits, vegetables, and grocery items in the run up to Eidul Fitr.

With 18 towns and millions of retailers located in thousands of markets across the megacity, the Commissioner Karachi’s office, with a limited workforce, has been coming out daily with tall claims of imposing heavy fines on retailers and giving the impression that profiteering is well under control. However, in reality, the price-checking campaign of Commissioner Karachi looks more like a routine yearly official task than a mission to safeguard consumers’ interests.

Instead of ensuring the presence of an official price list at the retailers’ end, the Commissioner Karachi has focused more on displaying the official price list of fruits and vegetables on social media platforms. The rates, posted on the official website of the Commissioner’s Office, usually remain offline due to various issues.

The absence of price lists of fruits and vegetables at retail shops and vendors’ pushcarts has put the consumers in a quandary, thus making it a weak case for them to lodge a complaint with the Commissioner Karachi’s number for overcharging by the retailers.

Consumers haunted by massive price disparity between official and market rates

The majority of consumers and pushcart fruit and vegetable sellers do not carry smart phones. In such a situation, neither the buyers nor the sellers can argue about profiteering.

The non-availability of official price lists for fruits and vegetables has provided an open opportunity for market players to charge prices at their own whims. If they are fined by officials, they are easily able to recover the amount by overcharging consumers.

In the case of grocery items’ price lists, consumers are also not getting any solace as most of the retailers have not displayed the list, thus putting an end to an argument with the consumers. Even the price lists displayed at some shops do not provide any relief as retailers’ charge market prices compared to control rates. Retailers have put the price lists on display in their shops to avoid any harassment from price regulators.

A random market survey revealed that the rate of high and low quality honeydew melon (kharbooza) is Rs80 and Rs100 per kg as against official rates of Rs73 and Rs53 per kg.

Two qualities of bananas sell at Rs100 and Rs150 per dozen, respectively, as compared to their official rates of Rs63 and Rs103 per dozen. Good quality water melon (tarbooz) is sold at Rs 80 per kg as against its official rate of Rs63 per kg.

Karachi Wholesale Fresh Fruit Association (KWFFA) President Syed Abdul Qadeem Agha said, “Our association was not consulted in the price fixing exercise by the Karachi Commissioner.”

He said that, as per past practice, previous commissioners had always taken the KWFFA’s input into the price fixation exercise of fruits ahead of Ramazan.

In grocery items, the official price of gram flour (besan) is fixed at Rs159 per kg, but retailers are selling it at Rs180-200 per kg. Black gram (kala channa) rate has been fixed at Rs150 per kg, but it is selling at Rs160-180 per kg.Consumers did not get any price relief on ghee/cooking oil, which continued to sell for over Rs500 per kg or litre despite the government’s decision on March 25 to provide a tax relief of 10 per cent on the import of edible oil.

The official rates of live poultry birds and their meat are fixed at Rs235 and Rs365 per kg, respectively. However, consumers are paying Rs300-350 per kg for live poultry birds and Rs500-600 per kg for their meat.

Surprisingly, there is hardly any shop that sells mutton at a controlled rate of Rs1,220 a kg. Retailers openly demand Rs1,400-1,800 per kg for mutton.

The price of veal meat with and without bones has been fixed at Rs660 and Rs825 per kg, but butchers are charging Rs850-900 and Rs750 per kg.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2022