KARACHI: Milk crisis seems to be surfacing as a retailers’ association has staged a protest and sit-in against the crack down by the police on dairy milk retailers outside Karachi Press Club on Saturday.
Retailers of Alfalah Milk Retailers’ Welfare Association claimed that the price-hiking issue of milk has been causing huge losses to milk-sellers for more than a month since the dairy farmers continue to sell them milk at higher rates.
They have written many times to the commissioner reminding him of the ongoing increase in the price of milk by wholesalers. Instead of taking action against the wholesalers and farmers who have been selling milk on their on terms , the police has started crackdown over small retailers and shopkeepers.
Talking to Daily Times, Aijaz Quraishi, the president of the association said: “We are buying milk at higher rates of 82.10 paisa how can we sell it on Rs. 80? He asked, adding that they can’t continue with these losses any more. It has been almost a month since we have been waiting; hoping for a positive outcome but there has been no progress.
“The city government exercises no control on dairy farmers and wholesalers, while retailers are being continuously fined from at least 40,000 to 50,000 and are being jailed for seven days,” he complained.
Aijaz Quraishi said that the commissioner had called a meeting on February 27, 2017 to listen the complaints and issues of the wholesalers and retailers but could not reach at the conclusion as the wholesalers had refused to agree on any of the points. The commissioner had given ultimatum of a week to farmers and wholesalers but could not manage to bring it down. We have been protesting since noon but no one has contacted us yet. They warned that they will wait till 10 pm to see if there is any development in meeting their demands, or else the association will be free to decide the future course of action. While, a wholesaler, Zahoor said that the wholesalers are middle-men who are not responsible for price-fixing, adding that the price is fixed by the administration and we are asked just to sell milk on that price.
On the other hand, the president of Dairy Farmers Association, Haji Akhtar said that they sell milk at Rs. 75 due to the government pressure. The formers suffer a lot due to low income. Many farmers have sold their cattle and have moved to Punjab and interior Sindh to their home towns because lack of business. He alleged that the retailers are making lame-excuses and aimlessly protesting. We had approached the previous commissioner Sohail Siddique many to the get the issue resolved but no attention was paid to our problems. Daily Times tried to contact the commissioner Aijaz Ahmed Khan for his comments on the issue but his phone remained un attended.