Winter Family Festival: Citizens left at mercy of profiteers

LAHORE: Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) has left the citizens at the mercy of illegal profiteers who are fearlessly overcharging the prices of edibles in the biggest Winter Family Festival of the province.

The festival, which was organised after some 15 years, attracted a large number of citizens, especially families who are facing overcharging as well as humiliation in case they object to it.

A number of citizens while talking to the scribe at the Winter Family Festival said that most of the food stalls were blatantly overcharging whereas PHA has not introduced any system to address the complaints of citizens. Ironically, most of the complaints were related to the food stalls as most of them have not displayed any price list and were selling edibles on very exorbitant prices. “We have ordered food and drinks at a stall and when bill comes we are shocked that a single cold drink is charged @ Rs100,” said M Rashid, a visitor at the Winter Family Festival. He said when he argued over the price of cold drinks, the stall owner called his labourers and other staff members and threatened him of dire consequences. He said he was with his family so he paid silently.

The PHA should enforce reasonable price of food items in the family festival but it seems that the festival was arranged for the stall owners to mint money from the public, said Rizwana, a house wife who was present at the festival with her two small children. She said her sons bought ice creams, which cost her Rs300 while in open market the same product would have cost her only Rs100. Bushra and Rabia, two students, who came to the festival complained that they ate Laddu Peethi and paid Rs120 per plate whereas the same plate was being sold outside the park @Rs60. They said every food stall was overcharging but there was no system to lodge a complaint. They said PHA should fix rates of food items and enforce them and if it cannot do this then close down the festival and save citizens from being robbed.

Many other citizens told the scribe similar stories and said that if the administration can’t enforce prices in a limited and controlled environment then how they can enforce official prices of daily use commodities in the provincial metropolis.

The citizens also demanded that DG PHA and other senior officials should daily visit the festival and themselves check what the stall owners and contractors were doing with the citizens. They also demanded that PHA should establish a complaint cell in the festival where citizens could lodge their complaints about overcharging and other issues.

To confirm the allegations of the citizens, the scribe also purchased two cold drinks from a stall, which charged Rs100 for each drink. When the scribe asked the owner about the high cost of the drinks, he claimed PHA has allowed them to charge this rate. The scribe called PHA’s organiser of Winter Family Festival Aamir Ibrahim, who said he will check and respond. He, however, said that PHA has allowed the stall owners to charge reasonable profit and no one was allowed to sell food items at exorbitant rates.

Later, a PHA official Usman called the scribe and told that the stall owner from where the scribe purchased soft drinks was fined but later changed his statement that strict verbal warning has been issued to the stall owner. The scribe also tried to contact Commissioner Lahore and a text message was also sent to his official number but no reply was received from him until the filing of this report.