Hapless buyers

LAHORE: Price hike is not limited to essential edibles but has spread from automobiles to stationary. Increases in costs are a double blow for the consumers as the suppliers have reduced the size of their offerings.

People are now forced to change the way they used to live five years back. They are making adjustments, but the problems are much beyond their endurance.

They must adjust their petrol consumption or transport needs. They must drastically reduce their power consumption.

Their priority is food. Even in food they find no cheaper alternatives for mutton, beef, or chicken meat. Pulses are expensive, the prices of rice and wheat flour have skyrocketed.

Then there are items that they could previously afford for their children and guests. Some strange things have happened with those items.

Take for instance biscuits. Barring a few, the branded biscuits are much thinner and smaller in size than some years back. But prices have tripled.

You cannot offer paper thin biscuits to the guests. Milk whitener marketed by a multinational has decreased the quantity from standard 1,000 grams to first 900 grams and now 850 grams.

The 1000-gram tea whitener lasted for fifteen days; the smaller pack finished in 12.5 days. The rate of 850 grams pouch is double than what used to be the rates of a 1000-gram pack.

Branded desi ghee is now offered in 900 grams instead of the standard 1kg pack and the rates are 20 percent higher. Standard small potato chips packing contains half the quantity at the same price.

If you have a craving for chips, you must buy two small packs. Most of the above items now come under luxury for lower middle class families that might shift to cheaper alternatives.

There is no check or standard for the essential manufactured products being offered in the market.

There is an acute shortage of stationery and school/college books as the prices of paper used to produce these items have increased many times.

Paper and its products are used in education, offices, and packing.

After increase in the regulatory duties on import of paper, the rates of locally produced paper products have increased in line with the increase in regulatory duties. Paper in Pakistan is produced from local inputs mainly through recycling of used paper.

At present, in Pakistan there are about 100 paper manufacturing units in the organised and unorganised sectors.

These units produce writing and printing paper, wrapping and packing paper, white duplex coated, un-coated board, chip board and other boards.

The per capita consumption of paper and board stands dismally low at 3.4kg in Pakistan compared to 75-100 in developed countries although the use of paper is declining in these countries as they are turning to paperless mode.

New educational year will start from August 1, 2022, but the schoolbooks are not available in the market. The books would be costlier than last year. It will be a big burden on families that send their children to private schools.

In automobiles, the rate enhancement is not limited to cars, it has hit every type of automobile. For over two decades the 70cc motor bike price ranged from Rs45,000-Rs70,000.

In the last three years, the prices have jumped to Rs110,000 for the largest selling brand and over Rs65,000 for the Chinese locally assembled brands.