PTI govt mull options to control inflation.

Byline: Shahbaz Rana

ISLAMABAD -- The federal government is considering different options to control the rising inflation, including lowering of taxes on imports to improve commodity supplies to the markets, as Prime Minister Imran Khan seeks to reduce prices of essential items to ease burden on the masses.

Numerous meetings have taken place at the finance ministry, the planning ministry and the Prime Minister House during the last week. At least three meetings took place in the finance ministry in the last 24 hours - two of which were attended by the former PTI secretary general Jahangir Tareen.

In the Q Block -the seat of finance ministry -the National Price Monitoring Committee met with Finance Secretary Naveed Kamran Baloch in the chair. The adviser to prime minister on finance chaired a separate meeting with all the stakeholders. Planning Minister Asad Umar chaired another meeting on the issue of rising prices on Friday.

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Prices of essential items are increasing but it must be remembered that the function of price control falls under the domain of the provinces, Finance Secretary Baloch stated. 'They [provinces] must accept this responsibility and make efforts to address the problem,' he added.

He went on to say that the local...