VEGGIES PRICE HIKE IN ISLAMABAD

The vegetable prices in Islamabad almost doubled in the past year. Today you could buy a kilo of tomatoes for 45 rupees. A year ago the same tomatoes would sell for 25 rupees. The sellers blame the middlemen for the high prices, while the middlemen blame the producers. However experts and market officials say that the state of economy and the lack of proper agricultural policies are to blame for the hike in the vegetable prices.

There might be multiple reasons but all it affects is the pocket of a common man.

An average buyer like Muhammad Riaz Whom I met in Rana Market Islamabad is unable to understand the price Mechanism. He says they fluctuate every day. He doesn’t know anything about middle men, producers or inflation and says vegetables and fruits in the market have got so expensive that it has become impossible for him to buy anything. He says “Its 60 today would be forty tomorrow and something else day after tomorrow. It has been like this for years.” He even fears he has to sleep meal less one day.

 

“Please weight them properly,” “how much, 100, isn't it too much,” “the other guy demanded 60 for the same,” “don’t do like this,” is the conversation you might hear at every vegetable shop if you are a regular visitor. The shopkeepers have a single answer, “we buy it expensive these days then how could we sell it less.”

The shopkeepers usually accuse merchants for selling high to them. The merchants in turn reply they have to locally buy these vegetables or to import from other part of the world. Taxes and farm production are the reason for price hike to them. They even accuse government for damaging their business by not having a food friendly economic policy.

The economist like Prof. Pervaz janjua, on other hand, has the view that the food commodities are perishable and it’s normal if they fluctuate in prices in a country where despite of deficit the food is usually exported to increase per capita income.