Soaring High: Plea against price hike in Ramazan

LAHORE: A petition was filed in the Lahore High Court on Friday challenging a price hike on commodities of daily use ahead of Ramazan. Petitioner Azhar Siddique said the prices of daily-use commodities had soared ahead of Ramazan and become out of the common citizen’s reach. He said prices should have been kept at a nominal rate during Ramazan but traders had been hoarding commodities to inflate their prices with impunity. He said the tradition of lowering the prices at the advent of Ramazan was practiced in several western countries but not in Pakistan. Instead, prices soared and the holy month turned into a period of extreme hardship for most people, the petitioner said. He requested the court to direct the government to explain why it could not control the prices of commodities during Ramazan. He also asked the court to direct the secretary for industries to explain the mode and mechanism for fixing and controlling prices of commodities.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28^th, 2014.