Government's futile efforts.

Islamabad: Prime Minister Imran Khan recently admitted his government's failure to keep the prices of flour and sugar in check. Soon after that, his tweet regarding the possible fall in vegetable prices made newspaper headlines.

The prime minister and his cabinet members seem determined to bring down the rising cost of living by using an iron hand for their dealings with market mafias and hoarders. The Federal Investigation Agency has been tasked to check wrongdoings that pushed up wheat flour and sugar prices.

Consumers are surprised over the government's late wake-up call on the burning price issue. They believe the government wants to take credit for bringing down prices when supply improves owing to Sindh's wheat crop arriving in mid-March and Punjab's crop hitting the market in mid-April.

The prime minister and his team were nowhere in sight when the flour millers triggered the price surge from April 2019 till January 2020, taking various flour prices to Rs60-75 per kg from Rs33-35 per kg. Blaming the non-procurement of wheat by the Sindh government in 2019, they said they had to purchase costly wheat from the open market.

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How can consumers forget they had to pay Rs400 per kg for tomatoes, followed by Rs500 per kg for chicken meat, Rs120 per kg for onion, Rs320 per kg each for mash pulse and capsicum, Rs80 per kg for sugar and Rs260 per kg for mung daal?

The sole reason for the declining price of vegetables is the arrival of new crops and not a fear of crackdown on hoarders and market mafias

Ghee and cooking prices appreciated by Rs50-60 per kg/litre in the last few months while loose milk's price rose to Rs120 from Rs94. Bread makers increased prices by 17 per cent in mid-2019. Tea prices witnessed a Rs100 per kg jump in the last seven months.

Now the price of tomatoes has declined to Rs30 per kg and retailers offer three to four kilograms for Rs100. Onion's price hovers between Rs60-80 per kg, followed by wheat flour price at less than Rs50 per kg owing to the plunge in wheat price to Rs3,800 per 100 kg bag from Rs5,300 a few months back because of improved supplies from the Sindh government to the mills. In April 2019, a wheat bag was available at Rs3,000. Prices of other vegetables like carrots, peas, cucumbers, capsicums, ridge gourds, bottle gourds, cabbage etc are lower now than the last quarter of 2019.

The sole reason for the declining price trend is the arrival of new crops and not the fear among...