KARACHI : The Sindh High Court on Wednesday directed commissioner Karachi to issue a notification on the retail price of milk, stating it should be kept at Rs85 per litre till April 1. According to the court orders, new price of milk would be applied after April 1.

Earlier in the day, a meeting of milk retailers and wholesalers was chaired by Karachi Commissioner Ejaz Ahmed Khan where both the groups agreed on Rs94 as the price for per-litre milk.

However, the court ordered the increased price to be applied after the new month starts. During the hearing, Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi said the new price cannot be readily applied as concerns of people from low-income backgrounds should not be overlooked. The price of milk went up from Rs85 to Rs100 per litre, following a dispute between retailers and wholesalers. Amid the dispute, the retailers had complained of being unable to break even after purchasing milk at Rs95 per litre from wholesalers and having to sell it at the government-approved price of Rs85 per litre.

“Wholesalers are selling [milk] at a price nine rupees above what the government has set,” a retailer said. “We have stopped purchasing [from the wholesalers] since yesterday.”

The power games of the milk mafia had left the citizens to suffer as Karachi’s daily milk demand of 4.5 million litres was faced with a deficit supply of at least a million litres.