Price hikes: As tandoorwalas adamant to increase roti prices, consumers cry foul

ISLAMABAD:

Come Wednesday, the price of a roti is expected to increase from Rs5 to Rs6 and that of a naan from Rs6 to Rs8.

And this price increase brings to fore the age-old and strangely co-dependent relationship between consumer and trader: traders blaming inflating prices of electricity and gas, consumers arguing against backhand revenge.

Salman Market Plaza Union Leader Malik Gulfaan said that there are two tandoor shops in the plaza, both rented at Rs15,000 per month. Add in bills, which amount to anywhere between Rs20,000 and Rs30,000 per month, salaries of three employees at Rs12,000 each, and Rs60,000 for raw materials, the monthly operating cost comes to about Rs140,000.

Each tandoor sells about 1,000 to 1,200 rotis in a month, amounting to a monthly revenue of about Rs180,000.

Tandoor owners argue that they make flatter-than-roti profits, and with continuous gas price hikes their profits are getting increasingly slimmer, barely breaking even. Prices of electricity and flour both play a part in the expected April 11 price hike of rotis from Rs5 to Rs6 while the price of a naan will rise from Rs6 to Rs8.

Shakeel, a doe-eyed attendant at Rana Market, was buying a few pieces of naan for his employer. He said, “Roghni naans (oiled naan) and qeema naans (naan with mincemeat) will become a novelty for a man in my position [after the price hike].”

Those living in a higher socioeconomic bracket are also beginning to feel the pinch. Capt (r) Imtiaz Hussain, a retired PIA pilot with 35 years of experience, while buying his Friday rotis lamented the increased prices of gas, milk, sugar and every other basic necessity. “I have travelled the world and nowhere is there such an absence of consumer price control.”

The tandoorwala retorted that an increase in roti prices is necessary to stay in business, but Hussain felt that these are simply excuses. “If it’s not gas, [the price increase will be blamed on the] raised rent,” he countered.

According to the figures provided by Gulfaan, a tandoor owner makes a profit of about Rs40,000 in a month. Though this calculation does not back the claims of tandoor owners that they do not even break even, one can see how they stand to lose part of their profits.

Whether consumers are being swindled out of their hard-earned cash is open to argument; but so is the fact that the tandoorwalas are not running a charity, but a business.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 9^th, 2012.