Significant decrease marked in prices of essential items

Prices of essential commodities, including vegetables, wheat flour, and an entire range of pulses and cold drinks have registered a significant decrease during the past week. A survey carried out by Business Recorder here on Saturday showed that the prices of four most important pulses, moong, masoor, maash and gram decreased by Rs 10 to Rs 50 per kg.
Maash price deceased by Rs 10 per kg. Last week it was being sold at Rs 150 per kg and now is available at Rs 140 per kg. Masoor price decreased by Rs 50 during the week, which last week was being sold at Rs 140 per kg and now is available at Rs 90 per kg. Gram pulse was being sold at Rs 70 per kg last week and currently is available at Rs 60 per kg. The price of moong and lobia pulses were stable at Rs 140 per kg and Rs 120 per kg. The prices of wheat flour decreased from Rs 590 per 20 kg bag to Rs 550 per 20 kg bag.
Waseem Khan, a grain trader at Ganj Mandi, said that wheat flour price came down due to bumper crop of the commodity in the country. The flour-millers have purchased huge quantity of wheat from the growers at low prices as the country produced over 25 million tons of wheat, which is a record. Private sector has procured nearly 3 million tons of wheat this year at Rs 800-850 per kg against government's fixed wheat support price of Rs 950 per 40 kg.
Traders at Ganj Mandi (grains wholesales market) told this scribe that due to the arrival of new crops, prices of most of the vegetables and pulses are witnessing a decrease. Traders said that the trend would continue for the next couple of months, but with the start of Ramazan prices of these vegetables would increase. Traders at fruit and Vegetable market said that during the week prices of onions, tomatoes, okra, tinda, tori, karela, bell pepper (Shimla Mirch), lemon, brinjal, and potatoes have registered nearly 50 percent decrease. Traders attributed the current vegetable price decrease to abundant supply from Punjab.
Last week okra was being sold at Rs 40 per kg, onions at Rs 25 per kg, potatoes at Rs 35, per kg, tomatoes at Rs 20 per kg, tinda at Rs 45 per kg, garlic at Rs 200 per kg, ginger at Rs 150 per kg and shimla mirch at Rs 45 per kg, which are now being sold at Rs 30 per kg, Rs 20 per kg, Rs 30 per kg, Rs 10 per kg, Rs 40 per kg, Rs 160 per kg, rs 100 per kg and Rs 40 per kg respectively, according to survey.
However, price of sugar increased by Rs 300 per 50 kg bag and chicken live/meat increased by Rs 10 per kg as compared to last week. After arrival of new federal budget cigarette manufacturers and suppliers of branded spices have increased the prices of their products by three to five percent. Traders said that the manufacturers of ghee/cooking oil have informed them that within next few days there will be an increase in cooking oil and ghee prices by Rs 10 per kg.