Double standards

LAHORE: The federal and provincial governments have double standards in their approach to control rates of daily use items. Small retailers face tough times when they sell items like sugar, eggs at higher prices, while large grocers are given a free hand.

District administrations and the Islamabad local administration issue a printed rate list on a daily basis that mentions the maximum retail prices of all essential items. Under the law, the shopkeepers have to follow the rate list.

For fruits and vegetables, a separate list is issued.

It is comprehensive in the sense that apart from prices of grade one fruits and vegetables, the rates of grade two or three fruits and vegetables are also printed.

The district administration imposes fines on shopkeepers who charge higher rates than those mentioned on the official list. Sometimes the violators are jailed as well.

But no such rules are applied to large grocery chain stores, both local and multinational. Rates of sugar, wheat flour, pulses and even eggs are higher than the allowed prices at these large chain stores. One even gets a receipt for these buys.

They play tricks to charge higher rates from the consumers. For instance they charge a much higher rate for iron fortified wheat flour (atta). Officials know that the fortification does not cost more than Rs10 per 20 kg of flour. But the prices of fortified flour are almost double.

Ideally, the flour mills should supply fortified atta as a part of their corporate social responsibility, and absorb the small fortification cost or the state should fix a price for fortified flour.

An interesting point in this regard is that even the eggs have been graded. The normal price of a dozen eggs is Rs240. These stores charge fromRs280 to Rs330 per dozen eggs wrapped in packing. Their plea is that these eggs were from special farms.

These stores have reserved a large space for imported items ranging from biscuits, potato chips, and chocolates, toffees to jams, jelly or marmalade.

There are imported shampoos, conditioners, hair oils, toothpastes, toilet soaps and numerous other items.

The law states that all imported items must have a printed expiry date, which in case of edibles must not be less than six months. The law also requires that the name of the edible product, its ingredients and instructions/warnings to the consumers must be printed in Urdu.

These rules are not obeyed at most of these stores. The rates of all imported items are exorbitant.

These stores also have a vegetable and fruits section, where mixed quality fruits and vegetables are sold at the prime prices.

Customers who come early pick the best quality, leaving the second and third grade quality for others, who pay the same price for these lower grade fruits and vegetables that they did for the premium grade.

These large stores also have a meat section, where the rates are determined by the store administration. These rates too are invariably higher than the rates notified by the district administration.

Shoppers go to these stores because they find all items that they need from the bakery, vegetables, fruits, and grocery under one roof. But this must not be a license to loot the consumers. These stores must also be regulated and they must be forced to follow all rules and regulations of the country.