Sugar price goes down after countrywide crackdowns

ISLAMABAD: With the caretaker government launching a massive crackdown to curb smuggling and hoarding of essential commodities, the price and availability of sugar were gradually becoming stable and normal.

In line with its strategy, the government has also planned prize money (cash reward) for those citizens who would provide information leading to the identification of elements involved in the smuggling and hoarding.

For this purpose, a toll-free number has been set up at the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the Ministry of Interior to call and share the required information against the elements involved in illegal activities, causing a dent in the national economy, the state news agency reported.

To stop hoarding the federal and provincial governments have launched operations in different cities, including Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Faisalabad, Peshawar, Quetta and Dera Ismail Khan, which resulted in seizure of illegally stocked sugar.

In Rawalpindi, the district administration taking strict action against sugar hoarders conducted raids on different illegal warehouses and sealed 13 godowns in Tayyaba Market and Rattaamral, confiscating over 1,000 sugar bags weighing 50 kilograms.

The administration also sealed five shops in Dalgaraan and Naswar Bazaars for hoarding sugar. In Peshawar, the district administration recovered 311 tons of sugar bags from godowns on Daraband Road.

In Quetta, a major crackdown is underway against the sugar mafia, under which the local administration last night recovered 250 tons of sugar and 750 tons of urea fertilizer in the outskirts of the provincial capital.

In Faisalabad, the district administration raided storages of sugar in the revenue limits of the city to check its artificial shortage and sale in black.

In Lahore, the Punjab government and sugar mill owners reached an agreement that the commodity would be sold at the rate of Rs 140 per kilogram.

In Dera Ismail Khan, the local administration conducted raids on the marked godowns on Daraband Road from where 5,000 bags of sugar were recovered. Similarly, in another raid, 650 bags of hoarded sugar were seized from the Maryali superstore.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Utility Stores Corporation (USC) said that sufficient stocks of sugar were available at a controlled price across the country.

He said sugar was available at Rs 147 per kg for general customers and at Rs101 per kg for customers registered under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).