PESHAWAR – The city district government’s idea of ‘Ramazan Sasta Bazaar’ has failed to provide relief to masses in the provincial metropolis, as the prices of daily use item have no visible difference as compared to open market rates.
Most of the Utility Store Corporation outlets lack sufficient stock of subsidised commodities. The administration of all the four towns of the district were used to organise the ‘Ramazan Sasta Bazaars’ in different places of the city to extend relief to masses, but this time it remained upto the claims of the government. The Town-I administration has setup a special bazaar in Finland, at a portion of historical Shahi Bagh, where few of the cart-pushers have stand their carts of vegetable, fruit and commodity items.
The Town-II administration had even failed to choose a specific place to setup such a bazaar. While the Town-III administration simply changed the name of Hayatabad Sunday-bazaar to ‘Sasta Bazaar, where though commodity items were available, but with meager price differences. It was also observed that the bazaar was setup by its own, as the administration has no role in either to check prices, hold security, or make other necessary arrangements for buyers. Similarly, the Town-IV administration had setup a small bazaar at Ring road near Garhi Qamardin, where the situation was not that much different.      
In the survey it was observed that most of the people were complaining of sub-standard food items at Satsa Bazaar, whereas the USC subsidize shops have insufficient stock of sugar and flour.
Likewise, during a visit to the government-run different Utility Stores in the city the other day, it was observed that most of the outlets were facing acute shortage of sugar and gram flour etc like items, which has common usage. The other commodities at these outlets also did not have any countable difference with the prices in open market. People were mostly visited to get sugar and flour on subsidized prices, but returned disappointed, as the inability of the Utility stores’ management to maintain sufficient supply all the outlets.
Sources disclosed that it was ideal time for the managers of the utility store corporation outlets to earn maximum profit by supplying the subsidized sugar to retailers in open market. The concerned managers of USC stores were pretending shortage of sugar, and selling the commodity in open markets, the sources added.
Interestingly, several of the USC outlets were displayed a small notice in front of counter that ‘sugar will be sold to consumers on production of CNIC. The system was introduced to curb black-marketing and shortage of sugar at the outlets, an employee of a utility store said on asking the reason for. The Zonal General Manager of Utility Store in Peshawar, Mehtab Banuri said that they have allocated a specific quota to each outlets for purpose, and are making arrangements with flour mills to supply required stock of flour to our outlets, he added. “We are supplying more than 33 flour bags to outlets on daily basis, he informed. He also informed that about 95 outlets and 40 regular franchise have been established in the zone.
Mehtab maintained that they have required more than 1,20,000 flour bags daily to supply to all the outlets and regular franchise. However, he said that the flourmill owners have also failed to manage the required demand due to excessive load shedding in the province.
About the ‘Sasta Bazaar’ when contacted the District Coordinator Officer (DCO) Peshawar, Javed Marwat, he said that they were trying to control prices of commodities at Sasta Baazar to extend maximum relief to the masses in this holy month. “Meat and poultry products are available on subsidized rates in different Sasta Baazar, he added.
About the selling of substandard food items, he said that he has constituted a special team of seven magistrate to check the quality of food on daily basis, and a number of profiteers, hoarders and violators were booked under the relevant section, he maintained.