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WEEKLY
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| Consumers resort to agitation against sugar shortage |
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Tuesday, November 17, 2009
By Samia Saleem
KARACHI: The government has been carrying out crackdowns on sugar mills and is committed to ensuring availability of the commodity at Rs40 a kg before Eid, but the sugar crisis is aggravating by the day as middlemen have jump into the fray to reap profit taking advantage of the situation.
Consumers staged a protest at Jodia bazaar against wholesalers due to lack of sugar in the market on Monday.
The sugar-starved consumers reached the wholesale market after being disappointed by its absence in the retail markets. Eyewitnesses told The News that unavailability of sugar in the wholesale market frustrated the buyers resulting in near stampede.
“People broke the queues, robbed the shopkeepers of cellphones and also took the sugar bags without payment,” said a shopkeeper. Karachi Wholesale Grocers Association Chairman Anis Majeed told The News that the association had decided in a meeting held on Friday, to give definite amounts of sugar to every retailer and local consumer coming to the market. He said: “We had decided to sell 1 bag (comprising 50kg of sugar) to consumer and 5 bags to the retailer per day after seeing their ID cards.
However this could be implemented only for two days as the consumers created havoc and the crowds doubled for limited supply.”
He said ultimately “we had to withdraw the decision” as the retailers were not getting enough supply which resulted in the consumer reaction on Monday.
General Secretary of Karachi Retail Grocers Group (KRGG) Fareed Qureshi, denying any planned protest by the retailers said that although the retailers were being affected by the new method of distribution it was general consumers who created furore at the market. Suspecting the middlemen as defaulters, he said that it was not the retailers or even the real consumers but these people were misusing the new distribution method.
He asserted that some middlemen were buying sugar fraudulently in bulk and selling at their own exorbitant prices to make personal profits. This was affecting the supply to real retailers, he said.
Jafer Khodia, Chairman of the Jodia Bazaar Traders Association said being distributors their duty is to supply commodity as per demand irrespective of the nature of consumers.
“However seeing the consumer’s reaction today we are reviewing the distribution method again with the government and now we will sell the commodity only to retailers and not to household consumers” said he. In the meeting which was still going on till the filing of this report Khodia told The News that the DCO will issue a list of registered retailers defining a method and hierarchy for distribution of sugar.
This will ensure a proper distribution and availability of sugar in the market and to all consumers he said. Currently the wholesalers are getting the rare commodity at Rs36 per kg from the millers and selling forward to the retailers at Rs38 per kg after earning a profit of Rs2 per kg. The retailers in turn are selling at Rs40-42 to the consumers.
“This shortage, the wholesalers traced, was created due to the non-availability of sugar to us by the sugar mills.” But in the past four days the situation has considerably improved. “We received 1,000 bags from the millers altogether and the situation is slowly improving as the mills are starting to crush more sugar as per the government’s instructions,” said Majeed. This he said will improve the sugar shortage in the city giving relief to the consumers.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
