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| Shopkeepers fleece customers ahead of Eid | | | Early Times Report
Srinagar, June 12: With Eid-ul-Fitr round the corner, the Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution (CAPD) department has failed to curb the menace of profiteering on Eid eve. The shopkeepers here are fleecing the customers by selling products at exorbitant rates and bringing immense inconvenience to the common masses.
Despite the state administration claims to have set up special price control squads to check profiteering on the eve of Eid-ul-Fitr, the ground situation in the Valley's markets speak different language, were the shopkeepers are dictating their own prices and put huge embarrassment to the local people.
The people complain that butchers are selling mutton at high rates.
People in downtown especially at Hawal, Soura, Khayam, Rainawari, Nawhatta, complained that they were charged Rs 480 for one kilogram of mutton against Rs 420 per kilogram fixed by the CAPD.
The people of uptown markets also complained that the official rates were openly violated by the butchers and poultry dealers in their areas.
"Last year the rate of mutton per Kg was 400 and on this Eid it is being sold at Rs 480. I protested to pay Rs 480 per kilogram of meat but the butcher at Khayam did no yield. I was bound to pay Rs 480 per kilogram or else I did not have to take meat home," said Javaid Ahmad, a resident of Hawal.
"Dealers are brazenly selling mutton and chicken at higher rates. I had to buy per kilogram of chicken at Rs 140," said Javed Ahmad of Budgam.
People also expressed concern over the quality of the meat being sold in the Valley.
"At Dalgate and Sonawar, shopkeepers sell poultry at 140 rupees per kg, while the concerned authority seems in deep slumber to check the price. These unscrupulous shopkeepers are looting customers on the Eid eve, but department special price control squads seems invisible in markets" said, Mushtaq Ahmad of Rajbagh.
Vegetable and fruit prices have also touched the sky were vendors like charging 100 rupees a dozen for bananas while 60 rupees a kg for tomatoes depending upon the buyers pursue.
"Who could buy fruits and vegetables at righer rates? Government has failed to check the prices when shopkeepers are looting customers before the Eid," said, Farooq Ahmad Bhat, a government teacher.
Various garment markets are these days flooded and crowded with customers were shopkeepers are charging with excessive price to shoppers of their own choice. "Before one month, I purchased a shoe at 1200 rupees at Abi Guzar market. But today, same shopkeeper demanded 1600 rupees of that similar shoe," said a photographer Mohammad Rafiq Wani.
Locals also face huge embarrassment at the shortage of cooking gas in the markets. The blackmarketers take the benefit and sell cooking gas cylinders at an exorbitant rates, said residents of Habba Kadal, Sonawar, Nishat and Barbar Shah.
Admitting that dealers resorted to profiteering, the CAPD department said it's squad was regularly checking the market and booking the violators of the fixed rates.
"The departmental checking squad is functional properly and they have fined numbers of shopkeepers last one week who were indulging in selling products at higher rates," officials said.
But, the officials of CAPD admitted that department could do very little unless consumer and buyer listen to their conscience.
"Consumers never come up with complaints to us, so that we would fine those shopkeepers who are not adhering to our rate list. It is also responsibility for shopkeeper not to indulge in any illegal practise," said an official of the CAPD department. |
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