Dissolution of district market committees begins

New price control panels for markets to be announced in next two weeks

RAWALPINDI:

The district market committees, representative bodies of traders, citizens and district administration, will be replaced by price control committees in the third week of the month, officials said on Thursday.

Following the directive of PM Imran Khan to dissolve the district market committees in Punjab and K-P, the Rawalpindi division administration has decided to dissolve the said bodies next week and set up new and more potent price control committees to check runaway inflation of grains, vegetable and fruit.

Until the constitution of committees based on competent people and in a transparent manner, this responsibility would be handed over to the district and tehsil administration concerned. In the case of non-implementation on the price list, action will be taken against the assistant commissioner concerned.

The chairmen of the Rawalpindi, Attock, Jhelum and Chakwal district market committees will tender their resignations in coming days and notifications for the dissolution of the committees will be issued next week, officials told The Express Tribune requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to talk to the media.

Subsequently, as per orders of Premier Imran, new price control committees will be empowered for conducting raids, imposing fines, as well as to seal shops selling goods above the official rates.

As of now, the district market committees possess powers to fix prices of vegetables, fruit, chicken, eggs, and meat and fix official rates of commodities and distribute rate lists.

However, the new committees will be empowered to not only fix but impose the official rates. These representative panels of traders, citizen and district administration officers will have powers to levy fines, carry out raids as well as check rates according to the official list.

Sources told that the chairmen of new district price control committees would be appointed in the third week of February.

The weekly meeting of the cabinet held to review the price and availability of essential commodities in the country on Wednesday was briefed on the difference of prices in wholesale and retail (groceries) level and in different districts.

It was said that the difference in the prices of commodities in wholesale and retail indicated towards the failure of the market committees.

The meeting decided to dissolve the market committees in the PTI-led K-P and Punjab provinces at the earliest.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2021.