Fruit Boycott Campaign now backed by Commissioner Karachi

The three-day fruit boycott campaign that kicked off on social media to protest against the escalating prices of com
02 Jun, 2017

The three-day fruit boycott campaign that kicked off on social media to protest against the escalating prices of commodities in Ramazan, now officially supported by the Karachi Commissioner Ejaz Ahmed Khan.

After the campaign initiated through WhatsApp on Wednesday night, Commissioner Ejaz Ahmed issued a statement on Thursday backing the whole idea of campaign and urged citizens to refrain from buying fruits from Friday till Sunday.

He stated that this step can help the administrative measures in pressurizing the fruit vendors and suppliers to cut down the unfairly high prices being witnessed since the beginning of Ramazan.

The joint efforts made by the administration and the conscientious citizens would help address issues direly affecting the masses, it added according to The News.

So far, the Karachi administration has imposed a fine of Rs 926,500 on 297 retailers in its campaign to curb unreasonable rates in the areas including Saddar, Civil Lines, Garden, SITE, Baldia, Firozabad, Jamshed Quarters, Gulshan e Iqbal, Gulzar e Hijri, Liaqutabad, Nazimabad, North Nazimabad, Orangi, Baldia, Bin Qasim, Ibrahim Hyderi, New Karachi, Landhi, Korangi and Model Colony.

The social media campaign is in full swing and determined to sustain the boycott from June 2 to June 4 in order to bring the prices down to a normal level.

Karachiites have taken the campaign on twitter:

 

 

But there are also social media users who think the idea is not suitable as it will make the poor fruit sellers more vulnerable to poverty in Ramazan.

 

 

And then there were rebuttals:

 

Apart from this civil campaign, a complaint cell has been established in the Agriculture Supply and Prices Department (Secretariat) where people can call to register their complaints about price hike. The phone numbers are 021-99211468 and 021-99211462.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017

Read Comments