Karachi
On one hand the city administration acts against retailers of dairy products, on the other, the traders have closed shop and refuse to sell milk at the official price of Rs70 per litre.
A day earlier on Monday, city’s retailers unilaterally raised the prices of milk and yoghurt — from Rs10 per litre and Rs20 per kilogramme to Rs94 and Rs140, respectively — prompting the authorities to step in and begin arresting and fining scores of shopkeepers. Though the official rates of milk and yoghurt are Rs70 per litre and Rs100 per kilogramme, retailers have been selling them for Rs84 and Rs120. Now they have further increased the prices, saying they were compelled to do so after dairy farmers increased their rates.
The All Karachi Milk Retailers Association said farmers had increased the price of milk from Rs79 per litre to Rs86. It claimed that gas and electricity rates had also increased and there were other expenses that the milk retailers had to put up with, stating the prices of the dairy products could not be reduced.
However, late on Monday night the Karachi Dairy Farmers Association announced it was taking back its decision to increase the milk price by Rs10 per litre after the city administration launched a crackdown and made more than 90 arrests to thwart the move. The association said the authorities had assured it of redressing its grievances before taking a final decision.
During the daylong crackdown, 24 dairy farms were raided and 97 people were arrested for overcharging customers without permission from the authorities, Geo News reported.
Meanwhile, smaller associations including the Nagori Milk Owners Association demanded the release of arrested retailers before they agreed to negotiate with the government. However on Tuesday, majority of shops remained closed since milk retailers were not willing to sell dairy products at the official rates. Talking to The News, Karachi Commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui
said action against retailers who were overcharging customers will continue. He stated the government would only talk to milk retailers if they began selling dairy products at the official rates.
He said their move to raise the prices of dairy products by Rs10 had put the people in jeopardy.
“How can someone decide the prices of daily commodity without consulting the government? Profiteering will be stopped at any cost,” he said.
Though the city administration itself has been engaged in taking action against profiteers for at least a couple of years now, the ad hoc crackdown hasn’t yielded any concrete results so far. The president of Dairy and Cattle Farmers’ Association, Shakir Umer, objected to the way government was treating retailers.