No immediate impact on prices of essential kitchen items

RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: There was no immediate impact on prices of essential kitchen items following the budget 2012-13; however prices of food items may witness sharp increase soon as government has not taken any measure to control or reduce inflation. Traders, wholesalers and people belonging to different walks of life rejected the budget 2012-13, saying that government has not announced any measure either to reduce or control the current wave of inflation to give relief to the public.

Talking to Business Recorder, they said that suppliers and manufacturers of different food items had increased prices on an entire range of daily use items before the budget on the expectation that the government would raise taxes on these items.

Quoting media reports, they said that there were proposals for increasing excise duty on ghee and imposition of 16 % sales tax on sugar in the budget 2012-13, due to which profiteers and hoarders stocked these commodities in advance. This action of the hoarders resulted in an increase of ghee and cooking oil prices by up to Rs 5 per kg/ litre before the budget. The price increase was different for different brands: Dalda cooking oil/ghee prices increased from Rs 200 per litre/kg to Rs 210 per litre/kg; and Kisan cooking oil/ghee prices increased from Rs 195 per litre/kg to Rs 200 per litre/kg. Ghee/cooking oil of lower quality were available at Rs 180 to Rs 195 per kg/liter with an increase of Rs 5 per kg/litre.

Sugar price also increased by Rs 1 per kg in wholesale markets and Rs 2 per kg in the retail markets. However no change was observed in sugar price after the announcement of budget.

Milk prices increased by Rs 10 per liter one week before the budget and Olpher, Nido and Nestle were available at Rs 90/litre against the previous price of Rs 80/liter. However no change was observed after the budget.

The prices of other essential kitchen items including Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), salt, pulses, rice, tea and cooked items/meal registered a substantial increase before the budget, however no changes were observed after the budget announced on Friday.

Traders further said that prices of vegetables remained unchanged after the budget. Tomato was available at Rs 20-25 per kg, onion at Rs 30 per kg, aubergine at Rs 20, karela at Rs 50, ocra at Rs 50, shimla mirch at Rs 100 per kg, potato at Rs 35 per kg, arvi at Rs 60 per kg and tenda at Rs 20 before as well as after the announcement of budget.