LAHORE - Taking advantage of poor price control mechanism of City District Government, the subsidised restaurants, hotels and tandoor owners are selling sasti roti at Rs 4 instead of Rs 2, a survey conducted by The Nation revealed on Thursday. Most of the hotels and tandoors functioning in commercial localities near bus and van terminals and Railway station are violating all the directions as well as rules and regulations in this regard and are charging Rs 3.50 per roti and without any hesitation or fear of the price control and other authorities concerned of CDG. A number of labourers who used to take meal at these hotels complained that owners of the hotels and tandoors are forcibly charging Rs 3.50 and do not return 50 paisas because the currency does not exist. When the labourers or other customers insist the owners of such hotels and tandoor owners to charge Rs 2 per roti, they usually reply them that they have sold subsidised flour bags and now they are using their own purchased atta and that is why they are charging Rs 4 per roti. In this regard, neighbouring shopkeepers of these sasta tandoors and hotels confirmed the complaints of the labourers and told this scribe that these tandoor and hotel owners are involved in overcharging and are not selling roti at Rs 2. They further said these owners also are getting flour bags more than that of their fixed quota from the CDG officials and they use to stock these bags after getting in bulk for which, they offer bribe to CDG officials and that is why they never been checked or raided by the officials concerned. In this regard, a shopkeeper of Regal Chowk, Javed said that he witnessed that an official of Data Ganj Bakhsh Town namely Tufail used to get money from owner of Shahab hotel for providing him flour bags in bulk every week, which Shahab has stocked. He said despite getting large quantity of flour, Shahab is charging Rs 3.50 per roti and his 'friend officials often inform him before arrival of any checking team of CDG. The officials of price control use to come for checking prices of sasti roti at this hotel once in a blue moon and in case they come there they casually ask the owner about the price of roti and leave the hotel even without checking quality or weight of roti, he added. He further said such quality and price checking team of Data Ganj Bakhsh Town often take meal from this hotel free of cost. He said the owner of the hotel use to give them a warm welcome whenever they visit his shop and on his recommendation, the officials stopped supply of subsidised flour to the other hotels, functioning in the surrounding area who now compel to sale roti in Rs 5, which also mar their business. Some labourers commented that one hand govt is claiming provision of sasta salin with sasti roti and establishing free dastarkhawans for deserving people while it failed to supply sasti roti to the masses particularly the labourers and the poor. On the other hand some hotel and tandoor owners complained that they were compelled to shut down their hotels due to unavailability of subsidised flour and on failing to provide roti to the masses on competitive rates. They said CDG officials suspended their supply of subsidised flour deliberately because they were not bribing them. In this regard, the DCO said the district administration had constituted more than seven hundred mahalla committees in order to monitor prices of roti at area level. He said that these committees would also ensure to stop misappropriation in the supply of flour and would be a constant check on such hotel and tandoor owners who were used to sale such subsidised flour to shopkeepers against some money. He said that initially the district administration received a number of complaints regarding overcharging on sasti roti but CDG officials with the help of army officials raided such hotels and ensured sale of sasti roti at Rs 2. He said each official is given two hotels or tandoors only for supplying flour and the administration fixed quota of different tandoors or hotels from two to five flour bags.