Profiteering: Battery prices sky-rocket due to cartel

Prices of dry-cell batteries, used mostly to energise Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS), are sky-rocketing in the provincial metropolis. A 130 amp dry battery, which was priced Rs7,000 until last month, is now being sold for Rs8,500. Similarly, unprecedented upward trend was witnessed in the prices of higher amperes batteries. The market is facing an artificial shortage of genuine batteries because a handful of dealers have formed a cartel to manipulate prices. A dealer running battery shop at Mozang said that three to four local companies are manufacturing batteries like Osaka, FB, Exide, AGS and Volta. Exide and FB are being produced by one company and Osaka and Volta by another. The companies, he said, provide batteries to their authorised dealers at control prices but the latter sell them at exorbitant rates.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 4^th, 2011.