Profiteers fined

Islamabad:The Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration has imposed a fine Rs7.8 million on many shops operating in the federal capital for not complying official rates and overcharging customers during the on-going year.

To ensure the price control and facilitate the public, the price magistrates were paying regular visits in their respective areas, and violators were being penalized, an official source in ICT told this agency.

Daily auction proceedings were being monitored regularly at I-11 Sabzi Mandi by the Magistrates to help the buyers for purchasing fruits and vegetable on control prices, he added.

All the shopkeepers had been directed to display official rate list issued by the city administration of essential commodities and sell them accordingly, he said. Citizens were asked to lodge complaints against profiteers on Pakistan Citizens Portal App for its early redressal. Meanwhile, the capital dwellers had complained that the officials were paying surprise visits only that provided an opportunity to profiteers of fleecing the public. Sadia Ali, a resident of Sector G-13/1 while expressing her concern said that the people living in the outskirts of Islamabad were being overcharged with impunity as every shop keeper has its own rate list and everyone was misleading the buyers. “It was not possible for me to go to G-9 market, some 10 kilo metre away from G-13/1 that forces me to buy things from the local market,” she regretted. Babar Ali, another buyer from Aabpara market urged the quarter concerned to ensure the display of official price list at every shopkeeper in the capital markets to facilitate the general public.