Wholesale trade: Government plans modern fruit, vegetable market

The new market will also have online presence allowing people to know prices of groceries, thought a single click

RAWALPINDI: Government will launch a mobile app to keep people updated with the officially announced prices of fruits and vegetables in Rawalpindi.

The government will set up a modern wholesale fruit and vegetable market outside the urban area to facilitate traders and wholesalers, Deputy Commissioner Dr Umar Jahangir said chairing a meeting of Market Committee representatives on Saturday.

For the first time in city, a government run vegetable and fruit market will become functional to control the prices of green grocery items, he said.

The new market will also have online presence allowing people to know prices of groceries, milk, and yogurt on single click.

The provincial government has removed Market Committee Chairman Raja Jahandar and Vice Chairman Maqbool Khan appointed during the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government. Moreover, traders’ leader Qaiser Kiyani has been tipped off as the new market committee chairman and an official notification will be issued next month, the meeting was told.

It was decided to make the market committee functional, market committee’s chairman, vice chairman and two MPAs Madam Farah and Wasiq Qayyum will look after the committee themselves.

The prices of all grocery items will be decided and uploaded online which the locals will be able to know on whatsapp click and will also be able to lodge complaints of excessive charging online on which the administration will on spot conduct raid and will take action against the said hawker, shopkeeper, challans will be done and sent to magistrate, shopkeepers will have to inscribe prices on the charts present within the shops, the wholesale markets, salt market, pulse markets, goods transport, grain markets will be transferred outside the city within two years after which the city’s traffic jam system will improve while the district administration has also decided proper price magistrates, assistant commissioner has been handed over the authority of magistrate’s summary trials. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2019.