Chicken meat was sold up to Rs 270 per kilogram as against the City District Government Lahore's (CDGL) fixed price of Rs 170 per kilogram during the four Eid holidays in the provincial capital. Former Chairman Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) Abdul Basit opined that the CDGL increased chicken meat price under the a conspiracy against the citizens of Lahore, as it was being sold at Rs 160-166 per KG before the administration's intervention in market mechanism of supply and demand.
He said that during a meeting before the Eid, PPA Punjab chapter had advised the District Co-ordination Officer Sajjad Ahmad not to fix poultry prices as it was a contravention of an order of the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP).
PPA warned that the poor consumers had already suffered enormously due to the unwise and uncalled for government's fixation of sugar prices earlier this year that had doubled since then. "There is no shortage of chicken birds in the poultry farms but due to the district administration harsh measures and imprisonment of more than one hundred owners of poultry meat outlets and heavy fines by the district price committees for violating the government's fixed price, the poultry farmers as well as the retail chicken meat sellers are shy to bring the birds to the city," he added.
He hoped that the chicken meat prices would come down if the administration stops its highhandedness and allow the smooth functioning of poultry market in the metropolis. A consumer, M.D. Malik, said that there is a powerful mafia who uses the district government to artificially increase the meat price to fleece the helpless citizens.
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