SHC issues notice to commissioner on plea against fixing of milk price

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday issued notices to the Karachi commissioner and others on a petition filed against the fixing of milk price.

Mohammad Sikandar Nagori and others had submitted in the petition that the commissioner had issued a notification fixing the milk price without taking into account the proposals submitted by the stakeholders.

Their counsel said that prices of essential commodities, including animal food, transport and electricity, had been increased, so it would be difficult for them to supply milk at the notified price.

He said the commissioner had fixed the price at Rs180 per litre for dairy farmers, Rs188 per litre for wholesalers and Rs200 per litre for retailers without considering the suggestions or seeking the consensus of the stakeholders and ignoring the production costs.

The SHC was told that the impugned notification was issued without considering the material factors and ground realities such as the increase in the prices of cost of feed of the buffalos which comprised compound feed, wheat straw, green grass, fat, baking soda, toxin binder dicalcium phosphate, soya bean husk, wheat bran and crush, corn, pulses, palm oil cake, rapeseed oil cake, rice and sunflower meal.

The counsel submitted that government functionaries had miserably failed to control the prices of agriculture items used in the feed of the buffalos and dairy farmers were purchasing such agriculture items at a heavy price, due to which it was impossible for the petitioner to supply milk at the cost fixed by the commissioner.

The counsel requested the high court to direct the commissioner to consider the stakeholders’ suggested price, and fix the price of fresh milk after analysing and working out the price in view of the ground realities.

He also requested the high court to declare the commissioner’s impugned notification about fixing the milk price as unlawful. After the preliminary hearing of the petition, a division bench of the SHC headed by SHC Acting Chief Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi issued notices to the commissioner and other respondents, asking them to file their comments on November 29. The high court also extended the interim order restraining the respondents from taking any coercive action against dairy farmers.