Wholesale price of milk will be maintained, assures Karachi commissioner

Retailers question government rate as wholesale milk costs them an extra Rs3

KARACHI: After closing shops for the day in protest against the increase in prices of wholesale milk by dairy farmers, retailers called off their strike after assurances from the Karachi commissioner to maintain the wholesale milk price.

Karachi Milk Retailer Association unilaterally went on strike on Friday against dairy farmers and closed all the milk shops in the city.
According to the association's founder, Amjad Ali, dairy farmers increased the price by Rs4 in January and then by Rs6 in March. Resultantly, the retail prices of milk also had to be increased as the government did not intervene.

"It is useless to continue our business if the government isn't paying heed to our problems," said one of the milk retailers, Aslam. If the retailers try to increase the price then the government arrests them but not the wholesaler or dairy farmers, he said.



"The government is openly giving an impression of being in support of [the actions of] the dairy farmers," Aslam said.

When the retailers increase the price, the Karachi administration start a crackdown against them and arrest shopkeepers, Ali said.

The official wholesale rate of the government is Rs75 per litre. However, now it is being sold at Rs83 per litre, Ali said. "The official retailer's rate is Rs80 per litre," he said, questioning how it was possible for them to sell milk at the government's rate when it was costing them Rs3 more than the rate.



"It is because of Karachi commissioner's apathy that today we came out on the streets and shut down our businesses," he said, adding that they would not have this far if commissioner had intervened earlier.

Dairy farmers
Dairy Farmer Association Karachi president Haji Akhtar denied selling milk in the wholesale market at Rs83 per litre and claimed that the commissioner earlier showed least interest in solving the prevailing milk crises in the market.