Govt mulls over fixing prices of 10 items on quarterly basis

LAHORE:The Punjab government is considering introducing a new idea of fixing the prices of 10 essential items, including ghee, sugar, flour, pulses, fruits, vegetables, chicken, mutton, and beef on a quarterly basis.

The idea was floated in a meeting held here to review the mechanism of pricing of edibles and steps being taken to eradicate locusts in the province chaired by the provincial minister for industries and trade Mian Aslam Iqbal along with minister for agriculture Malik Noaman Ahmad Langrial.

The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Jawwad Rafique Malik, Senior Member Board of Revenue Babar Hayat Tarar, administrative secretaries of different departments and officers concerned to brief the performance of their respective department related failure of price control mechanism and locust control in the province. The divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners participated through a video link.

The officials attended the meeting said that a proposal of fixing the price of essential perishable items on quarterly basis was floated which was picked by the minister and instructed constituting a committee to prepare mechanism and recommendations for it.

According to official handout, the meeting reviewed the strategy for fixing prices of daily-use commodities, especially 10 essential food items, and deliberated on a proposal to fix prices of ghee, sugar flour, pulses, fruits, vegetables, chicken, mutton, and beef etc quarterly. It was decided that a committee would be set up to prepare recommendations on the mechanism to determine the prices of commodities every quarter.

However, contrary to the proposal, the officials of the industry department said that different segment floating such proposals for sometimes of fixing the perishable prices for certain time period instead of daily prices. The government is already fixing the rates for grains, wheat flour, ghee, pulses on monthly basis while milk, curd, mutton and beef prices are also reviewed and increased upwards when needed. The price of mutton, beef, milk and curd was increased by the government recently.

The official said the idea of fixing of perishable items, including fruits, vegetables and chicken meat could not be fixed for a certain period of times. The prices of these items vary on the demand and supply basis while weather also played a critical role in price fluctuations of these items. For instance, the government fixed a price of tomato for a quarter while due to weather tomato crop damaged as it witnessed then how the government will be able to enforce an already fixed price when the product is not available or short in supply.

The official said that the industry department only fixed the prices while the district administration enforced it and the issues of price list violations were never resolved. Further, the district administration fixed the daily price of fruits, vegetables, chicken and eggs in accordance with the daily supply and demand basis. Once the price of a product fixed for even a week and supply distorted due to any reason then how the district administration could ensure supply of the product at the fixed rate during the week.

Fixing the price of such items for a certain period, one week, two weeks, for month or quarter could release daily work load of monitoring of auctions in the markets but it could not be able to enforce it by ensuring the supply. For example, in whole month of Ramazan, guava price was not implemented anywhere even in wholesale market of Badami Bagh and others as demand increased against the supply.

Meanwhile, the handout stated that Mian Aslam Iqbal said that the provision of daily-use commodities to people at the prices fixed by the government was the prime responsibility of administrative officers and any negligence in this regard would not be tolerated at all.

The minister was addressing a meeting held to review the mechanism of pricing of edibles and steps being taken to eradicate locusts in the province. On the instructions of the minister, the chief secretary asked the officers to keep a strict check on the prices of eatables even after Ramazan. Price lists should be displayed prominently and shops of violators should be sealed, he directed.

Later, the meeting reviewed the latest situation of locusts in the province and expressed satisfaction over the steps being taken for the pest eradication. It was informed that timely measures helped to protect crops on a vast area from swarms of locusts. It was decided that the vehicles of different departments that were not in use due to coronavirus restrictions would be utilised in the ongoing locust combat operation and help would also be sought from Lambardars, patwaris, mosques prayer leaders (imams) and local communities to bring locusts under control.

Senior Member Board of Revenue Babar Hayat Tarar briefed the meeting that locust combat operation was underway in the affected areas of the province and so far about 147,000 hectares had been sprayed and surveillance of 75,463 hectares completed. He said that a sufficient quantity of pesticides was available in stocks and it was being provided as per requirement. He said that 64 vehicle-mounted sprayers, 868 power, and 317 manual spray machines were being used for spraying pesticides while 244 survey, 965 other vehicles, and necessary machinery were also in use.