The city returned to normalcy on Tuesday after remaining tense for five consecutive days after the assassination of Mohtarama Benazir Bhutto on Thursday last, but prices of daily-use commodities which had gone up during the disturbances did not return to its last week levels.
The survey restricted to a few selected markets showed that daily-use articles were in short supply and their prices were still on abnormally high levels. Articles such as baby food, including milk and milk products, wheat flour, rice, pulses, eggs, breads and vegetables were in short supply.
In some of the areas such as Keamari, wheat flour was quoted at Rs 60 per kg. Many shops had run short of kerosene oil, cooking oil, matchboxes and candles. Fresh supplies were still awaited in some bazaars. There were bakeries that were selling a variety of products, had confined to only a few kinds of bread and biscuit because of the absence of the workforce.
Whatever was available at these bakeries on Tuesday were only bread, butter and eggs. Eggs were quoted at Rs 60-65 per dozen. Vegetable is perishable product but its prices, despite its storage for five days with vendors, remained high. Tomato was being sold at Rs 40 per kg despite its availability in abundance in the market. It is season for tomato plucking.
Similarly, prices of cabbage, cauliflower, beetroot, bean and other leafy vegetables, which are seasonal products, were high and beyond reach of mid-income people. There was variation in prices varying from locality to locality as well. People in the posh localities thronged Empress Market to purchase vegetables.
"We have covered more than seven-km distance for shopping of vegetable as prices in our areas are higher than the prices at Empress Market," said some of the buyers of daily-use articles who had come from Defence and Clifton areas.
At the Empress Market, where prices are usually competitive, wheat flour was being sold at Rs 30-35 per kg, edible oil at Rs 120 per kg and sugar at Rs 28-30 per kg. Shopkeepers said that there was no regular supply of daily-use articles and transport was yet to ply normally to regulate supplies. Before there was a balance in supply and demand, there would be no stabilisation in prices.
In their opinion prices would come to normal position once the disturbed situation in the city and elsewhere in Sindh eased further and regular flow of supplies resumed from upcountry. They said that panic buying was adding more to shortage of goods and increase in prices.